Plot Bunny Pastures - Harry Potter
by ProfessorScrooge
Summary: See the free-range rabbits roam freely; enter at own risk. This would be my unfinished works file, containing things not worth posting on their own as they're too small or being unfinished etc. Things from here may end up being resurrected and expanded upon as full stories, but for the moment this is where they'll stay. This is my HP file, as opposed to any others that spring up.
1. Immortality is a Curse

**A/N: And so I gain an unfinished and random ideas that don't merit their own story file, much like every other author on . I'll be posting general crap here that doesn't merit its own story, and I can't guarantee it will remain entirely HP-oriented (although I imagine the majority will be). I'll probably be posting stuff here to stop the fans of Call Me Moriarty becoming sad that there's no chapter that week. So, without further ado, on with the show.**

 **Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING, property of respective owners etc.**

I Started a Joke

 **A/N: Time travel is one of the single most overused aspects of fanfiction – you can find just about anything if you go looking, especially in the Harry Potter ballpark. This is my hat thrown into the ring as a crack-fic to take my mind off of other things. Partially inspired by 'Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus' (great read by the way).**

Time travel is a messy thing.

There are a lot of aspects that can go wrong and not many ways in which it goes well.

' _Bad things happen to wizards who mess with time_ ,' Hermione Granger had once warned her teenage friend. Of course, she was six months dead, but her final project lived on in the hands of those surviving Order members.

Various men and women scurried around the room, making final adjustments to carved runes upon the stone floor, and one young adult with messy black hair lounged on a chair off to the side, looking despondently at the ongoing work.

"Ivy," declared a voice behind her, and the young woman shifted to look over at the scarred werewolf looking concernedly at her. "You mustn't worry, it _will_ work."

"That's what worries me," she replied, turning eyes back to the outlined ritual circle. "You're going to be giving your _lives_ , Remus, and even that on just the hope that I can-."

"Ivy, we've been over this," he interrupted, "by going back, you can change the timeline and prevent our deaths from ever happening – and a number more besides. You'll be entering into your first year at Hogwarts; you'll have plenty of time to stop things escalating to where we are now."

"But I'll still remember all of this," the ravenette insisted, "how do you expect me to live with myself after seeing you all…"

"Because you'll have to," he stated firmly, "we need you to. Look at me." She turned her emerald eyes upon the grizzled man. "Ivy Alice Dorea Potter, I trust you with my life, as does everyone else here. That's why we're giving them to give you this chance."

The woman sighed, rubbing her forehead and the infamous scar that was prickling as it was oft wont to do, it seemed it never stopped in these last few years.

"Thank you Remus, it's just I still feel…" she trailed off, unable to put it into words.

"Miss Potter!" called a voice from across the room, and her head snapped up to see the speaker. "We're ready."

####################################################################

Golden light seared up through the floor in line with the carved circles, and each remaining member of the Order of the Phoenix fell to the stone as life left their bodies. Ivy couldn't help but give a keen of pain at the sight, watching her last allies and friends from harsh years of life die in front of her.

Thoughts were torn from her mind, however, as the pain began. She fell to one knee as her body felt like it was being dunked in acid, and through bleary eyes, she actually saw her limbs dissolving into thin air. Her last conscious thought was that Time Travel was a bitch, before she was pulled backwards.

Now, it must be stressed, that those working on the project – including the late Hermione Granger – knew what they were doing, and had been entirely accurate in their workings from what information they had.

However.

None of them – least of all Ivy herself – was aware that she had a lodger in her head; another piece of soul not her own. And so, as her essence flew down the time stream to what would have been her eleven-year old body, she was suddenly thrown off course by the disembodied force following her along.

When she was finally conscious, she was aware of only pitch-blackness, constrictiveness and wetness around herself. She couldn't open her eyes, or move her limbs, but she felt like she was being squeezed through a thin tube.

Finally, very cold air hit her apparently nude form, and she was suddenly aware that screams were forcing their way out of her throat.

There were other sensations then, a cutting by her navel, and something wrapped around her. As well as what felt like hands, but must have been far too large – her mind turned inexplicably to Hagrid, an old half-giant friend who had died early in the war.

When finally she did open her eyes, she understood.

She could just see the edge of a white towel wrapped around her tiny form, and that there was a baby across from her with _very_ familiar icy blue eyes, staring at her much as she did at him.

' _Oh bloody fucking hell_ ,' she thought as comprehension dawned.

####################################################################

' _I've officially decided, I'm fate's chew toy. The bitch just seems to have it out for me_ ,' Ivy was firm in her thoughts as she looked through the white bars of the cot.

' _Well if that's true, it's you and me both_ ,' came the cultured, male reply from her counterpart. While they could not speak – since their mouths weren't developed enough yet – they had discovered they could think to each other some way. ' _I mean, I have to spend two decades stuck in your head without even being able to communicate much more than making your scar hurt, and then we get sent back in time by your imbecile compatriots. When that lot are born, I'm personally going to go out and make my displeasure known in exacting amounts_.'

' _You most certainly bloody will not!_ ' Ivy returned. ' _I swear, I'm going to fucking kill you and stop all the misery you caused the first time round!_ '

' _And how are you going to do that, Potter? If you'll recall, we're both stuck as infants for the time being_ ,' came the derisive reply.

' _I'll find a way, I've already killed you three times, I can do it again_.'

' _Oh, don't remind me of that, I remember them perfectly well thank-you_ ,' Voldemort bitterly replied, ' _I should have just cast a cutting curse on that bloody Halloween and this whole mess never would have happened_.'

' _How did that even get you stuck in my head anyhow?'_

' _You were the impossible; an accidental, human horcrux. A portion of my soul – or more accurately, me – split off from my main body into you when I died_.'

' _And you were squatting in my forehead ever since?_ '

The Dark Lord just growled in response.

####################################################################

Ivy did try and fulfil her promise, however it was somewhat more difficult than it at first seemed. Braining each other with blunt objects was ineffective, but as soon as they could reach properly, the pair attacked each other with hands around throats to suffocate the life from the other.

Of course, neither particularly expected to find themselves in a silvery train-station that looked decidedly like King's Cross after the event.

"What the bloody hell is this?" Ivy exclaimed, looking around the large, open space. "King's Cross?"

"This is the afterlife?" Voldemort echoed, and upon being reminded of his presence, Ivy turned on him with an angry expression.

"You're supposed to be dead; I was trying to kill you."

"Likewise," he replied in that infuriating manner of his. "I think that perhaps we can board a train here."

"What?"

"Well, why else would we be in a train station?"

"What? One to Heaven, and one to Hell or something?" she asked doubtfully.

"I wonder…" he turned and moved to examine the ghostly doors at the entrance of the station, "what if we took neither?"

He disappeared through the doors, quickly followed by an irate ravenette, and they woke up in their bodies – no worse for wear.

' _Well this is awkward_ ,' he sent, though Ivy merely frowned.

And so they discovered that they couldn't kill each other – although they certainly tried several times, in increasingly creative ways. The proprietor of the orphanage had screamed bloody murder when she found a pair of bloody scissors under Ivy's bed, having previously been used to slit his throat. Likewise, the noose he had slipped around her neck while she slept had wrought the pale faced woman to beat the pair of them.

' _I kind of understand why you hated her_ ,' Ivy admitted as she massaged tender flesh, ' _old bitch_.'

' _Mrs. Cole was the least of my worries, she has a tendency to drink herself into a stupor and forget about the children. It was the other residents of this damn place I truly loathed_.'

####################################################################

The young boy raised an eyebrow as his sister sat opposite from him on their out-of-the-way table at the very back of the dining-room, immediately attacking her small plate of food with ferocity.

"Five years of claiming to want to do things right, to never stoop to my level while stopping me from claiming my old place, and you survive three weeks of Sunday School before lashing out with 'accidental' magic," he said in amusement.

"He pulled my hair," the girl replied grumpily, "that shit _hurts_."

"So does the broken leg you gave him when you tripped him on the stairs," he commented wryly.

"Shut up, this does not make me like you," the ravenette poked a fork in his direction, emerald eyes blazing with anger.

"Why do you think my magic emerged so early? I had need of it to defend myself from that lot," he jerked his head in the direction of one of the more full tables, the group of burlier boys laughing and snorting at some undoubtedly inane thing. "The only thing bullies understand is strength."

"You can't call what you did in later life self-defence, though," his counterpart retorted. She didn't refute his statement, however.

That night, Tom Riddle awoke to the feeling of being bound and his nose pinched as some foul substance was forced down his throat. The convulsions stopped after about a minute, and his twin finally let go of his lifeless corpse. Grabbing a chair, she stared at the dead body for all of five minutes before his eyes opened, and he coughed a bit.

"It's been almost six months since we had a go at each other, did I hit a nerve at lunch?" the boy asked amusedly, surveying the bedsheets tying him down. The ravenette remained silent, her eyes downcast and face shrouded in shadow. "Where did you get the chemicals?"

"Stole them," she responded after a moment, "thought it might be worth trying something new."

"Variety is the spice of life," he agreed. "Although, it makes for a decidedly unpleasant way to shuffle off the mortal coil."

"Good," his counterpart grunted before standing and walking to her own bed.

"Are you at least going to untie me?"

"Maybe in the morning."

####################################################################

The seaside trip was something of a highlight of the year for the children of Wool's Orphanage. Most had never even seen the sea, and children gambolled about everywhere playing in the sand and splashing in the water.

All but two.

"You really weren't subtle with all the attempts to get me in trouble in the weeks leading up to this," Tom stated as they sat on a small cliff, above their compatriots and beyond the reach of the sunbathing woman 'minding' them. "You nearly got yourself left behind, and even now you're guarding me rather than go down there. I know for a fact that you've never been to a beach, why not enjoy it?"

"On this day, you traumatised two children for life. One of them killed himself at thirteen, and the other ended up in an asylum," she answered curtly, "can you blame me?"

"But why would I do it again?" He turned to look at her, "I did it then partly as revenge and partly as experimentation to see what I can do. I harbour no substantial hatred towards them now, and I have no need to experiment when I know what I am capable of."

"That doesn't mean I'm letting you out of my sight," Ivy replied firmly.

"I would expect nothing less."

####################################################################

"What'chu readin', girlie?" Ivy did not look up for several moments, instead continuing to the bottom of the page before closing her large tome carefully, and turning harsh green eyes on the group of three muscle-bound youths.

"War and Peace," the young girl answered blithely.

"You what?" the burliest of the trio snatched the book before she could stop him, opening it up to a random page and sneering at the small text. "Dere's no way you can be readin' this, no one never teaches orphans to read this good."

"More's the pity," the girl snarled, pushing the boy back with a strength disproportionate to her small frame, while having recaptured her book. With a dismissive final glance at the boy on the dusty ground, she stalked away.

"Why you readin' that anyways? We ain't gone 'ave no more wars, we already 'ad the War to end all wars." The normally stony-faced girl actually cringed slightly at the call from behind her.

"No, you're very wrong there."

####################################################################

For once, as the twins sat together on the roof of the orphanage, they were silent, allowing late afternoon light just impacting upon them the last of its heat.

For those who looked at them objectively, the boy seemed perhaps a year older than his sibling, due to their height difference mainly. But at that moment when the horizon was light up with fire and smoke, the age could be seen in both their eyes. Emeralds and Sapphires, hard stones that had stood the testament of time and been forged through immense pressure.

"September Seventh, nineteen-forty," Tom stated dispassionately. "The day the Blitz began."

"This time next year, we'll be in Hogwarts," his sister replied, watching the fires begin in the port area of Surrey. "I used to live over there."

"Number Four, Privet Drive, Surrey," the boy commented without looking away from the fires. "I remember; I was in your head. Aren't you happier seeing it burn?"

"Maybe."

"And can you not see?" he gestured at the inferno. "Why I thought that the muggles could not be trusted with their own independence; they need someone competent leading them or they will destroy themselves."

"You spent most of your time killing them and the muggleborns, am I supposed to believe you secretly wanted to save them?"

"No, I wanted to rule them, and I wanted power. The quickest way to that was the disgruntled purebloods aching to turf the muggleborn from their society. The war was inevitable; I only made sure I led it."

"You seemed pretty gleeful getting your jollies torturing people."

"Dark magic is intoxicating to use, and the rest was the part I needed to play as a Dark Lord."

"That's your justification for the things you did?"

"It's not a justification, it's an explanation. I am not claiming to be a good person, far from it. I'm a psychopath, Ivy, much as you are for that matter."

"Me?"

"Every year on your original birthday you find a new way to try and kill me."

"You do the same on your birthday."

"Yes, but I'm well aware that I'm mentally disturbed."

"You're the Dark Lord who split his soul, and has a body count in the hundreds."

"You're the Young Heroine who was designed to be a weapon, with a body count in the dozens."

"You…" the anger in her voice was palpable as she wrung her hands, attempting to come up with a counter-argument.

"You forget, I've spent more than two decades inside your head, I know you better than perhaps you yourself do."

"I hate you."

"I'm well aware of that; you've reminded me practically every day for ten years." It was left unsaid that the venom had long since started to disappear from her voice.

####################################################################

Ivy watched her 'brother' carefully as he sat impatiently in his chair, facing the door of their small room from her position on her bed, leaning back against the wall.

Despite that they were opposite genders, the fact they were family and reasonably young was apparently still enough reason to place them together. Probably due to lack of space, and the fact that they wouldn't exactly do well sharing with anyone other than each other.

"I don't understand why you're so impatient," the ravenette commented, throwing a leather cricket ball up in the air before catching it deftly. Regardless of what time she lived in, her Seeker's reflexes were top notch.

"Today's the day, July Twenty Third, we can finally get away from this damn place," Tom answered, staring intently at the door.

"He'll arrive when he arrives, probably at the same time he did last time," Ivy replied disinterestedly.

"Shouldn't you be more excited to see him?"

"What?" her hand stilled, and she sent a glare his way, "the great manipulator of my life? The man who pretended to be my father figure, all the while pushing for me to fight you and then finally fucking off and dying before telling me in full what needed to be done, in favour of leaving cryptic fucking clues that weren't in the least bit helpful? The old bastard can bugger off for all I care. Let him rot in bloody hell where he belongs."

"That's unusually acidic, even for you," the boy who was not really a boy responded.

"I'm not in a good mood," she stated simply.

"Clearly. Might I ask why?"

"For one thing, I'm going to have to spend the next few years of my life focusing on making sure you don't rise to power again, I'm also having to repeat Hogwarts, only without my friends," Ivy returned to throwing her ball up in the air, "and I realised this morning that I'm about to go through puberty again, as if it wasn't bad enough the first damn time."

"Ah, I suppose that would rankle somewhat."

"Somewhat? You try being a pubescent teen in a school where people are only allowed to leave once every three months," she growled, "not to mention bloody boys suddenly noticing that you're female and thereby deciding that you somehow owe them something for deigning to look upon you."

"Is that directed at that Weasley boy and the events of the Yule Ball?" he queried curiously. Her silence told him all he needed to know.

Said silence was not broken until the door finally creaked open – without any prior knocking – to unveil Mrs Cole showing a long-bearded man in a bright blue suit into their room. The suit clashed horribly with his ruddy beard that hung to his waist, and proved that Albus Dumbledore had never had an eye for fashion, even when younger.

"Ah, thank-you, Madame Cole," he said to the woman, who gave a stiff nod before leaving while closing the door behind her. "And good morning to the pair of you."

"What do you mean by that?" Ivy inquired, turning her head to affix emerald eyes upon him while still playing with her cricket ball. "Do you mean to wish us a good morning?"

"Or that it will be a good morning regardless of how we may wish it," surprisingly, Tom caught on to her, and Ivy barely resisted smiling in favour of giving her life's manipulator a bemused look as she continued.

"Or that you feel good this morning?" she added. ' _I'm surprised you recognised the Hobbit line I was quoting_ ,' Ivy sent silently to her twin.

"Or that it is just a morning to be good on?" Tom finished. ' _Stuck in your head for twenty years, remember?'_

' _I still think Dumbledore is a second rate Gandalf impersonator_.' Since she had come to know him so well over the past eleven years, Ivy did notice the smallest of movements of his lip that denoted him trying not to smile – a rare occurrence for the ex-Dark Lord.

"I would wish you a good morning," Dumbledore finally answered after a moment of deliberation. "My name is Professor Dumbledore."

"A professor of what? And at which university?" Tom inquired, turning his head to the side slightly as if surveying a mildly interesting specimen.

"Ah," he frowned a little, "transfiguration, at Hogwarts school. That is the reason I am-."

"You can't be made a professor by a school," Ivy interrupted him, drawling her words slowly; " _everyone_ knows that. You have to either teach at a prestigious university or be honoured by one due to being without peer in a specific field. And what sort of subject is transfiguration, anyway?" The man looked about to answer when Tom pre-empted him.

"Isn't that the thing you read about a while back? When people are confused as to their gender or some such," he commented, looking over at her, "I believe they're sent to specialist hospitals. Or asylums. Is this 'Hogwarts' an asylum?" He turned back to the professor with a raised eyebrow.

"If so," continued Ivy, stopping him from replying once again, "why are you here to see _us_? Has Mrs Cole been rambling about us being psychic again or something equally ridiculous?"

"Hogwarts," Dumbledore began quickly, before either of them could speak, "is a school of learning, not an asylum. It is a school of _magic_ ; the finest in the world in-fact." There was a pregnant pause in the room, as both twins raised eyebrows high.

"Are you _sure_ you're not from an asylum?" Tom eventually replied.

"Are you saying you've never been able to do things? Strange things which others cannot?" the man gave a slight smile as he withdrew a stick from within his left sleeve. "This is a wand, which is used to channel magic."

"You are _quite_ certain you didn't come from an asylum?" Ivy repeated dubiously, inwardly laughing at how awkward they were making this for him. That was until he turned twinkling blue eyes on her and she felt a poking at her occlumency shields. Though she didn't react outwardly, inwardly she was not at all happy – or surprised. ' _He's trying to use legilimency on me_.'

' _He already tried on me, besides how did you think he knew first time round what was stolen in my cupboard?_ '

"Perhaps I should prove I am telling the truth," he finally said after he turned away from her eyes with a slight frown. With that, he flicked his wand in Tom's direction, "Wingardium Leviosa." As he slowly raised the tip of his wand, the chair floated into the air with a none-too-impressed boy atop it.

"Hey, put me down!" he cried, holding onto the wood tightly as it wobbled in mid-air. Dumbledore did comply, but Ivy noted the bump as he touched back down. Passive-aggressive much?

"I thought we were the only ones," Ivy finally relented as she decided to set aside that piece of their charade. "And this is magic, then?" This time, when she tossed the red ball upwards, it stopped halfway to falling into her palm, and she manipulated it to spin around while orbiting her finger. Wandless and wordless levitation was a very useful talent that took a great deal of effort to learn, but being able to regain your wand in a fight was invaluable. Not to mention, she had had plenty of practice getting a little payback here-and-there with their peers in the orphanage.

"Yes, it is," Dumbledore replied slowly, eyes transfixed on the floating ball. For someone who would later in life have part of his legend be casual use of wandless magic, it was nice to be able to stun him with it.

"So you can teach us," Tom picked up the previous conversation thread before flicking his palm outward and summoning her ball to slap against his hand. "To do more things like this?"

"Yes," the man stated, readjusting himself and seemingly re-evaluating them. "At Hogwarts you will learn to do many things, from Potions to Transfiguration."

" _Will_ do? As in it is already decided?" Tom remarked.

"Madame Cole has already agreed to send you to Hogwarts, since your tuition fees are paid for by the bursary set aside for orphaned students," he answered. "Speaking of which; you will be needing these," he held out two envelopes with their names on in iridescent green ink. "These are your Hogwarts acceptance letters, and inside you will find the list of items you will need for the coming year. Furthermore, you will find the access key to a vault at Gringotts in your names which have a small stipend of spending money for you to buy your equipment, and your ticket for the train on the 1st of September."

"What happens if we do not attend?" Ivy asked curiously, genuinely wondering as to the answer.

"Then you would receive a visit from the Ministry of Magic; you are required to gain an education into the use of your magic until you have at least passed your OWLs."

"Owls? Is all certification in the magical world named after birds?" Tom said drily.

"No, the more advanced qualification is a NEWT," Dumbledore stated. The twins merely raised their eyebrows once more, in sync, apparently unnerving the man. "Yes, well, I am afraid I must be going; I have several families to notify before the end of the day. Good morning.

"What a lot of things you use 'good morning' for; now you wish to say you feel uncomfortable and would like to leave," Ivy commented with an angelic smile that she imagined looked fairly creepy. Dumbledore didn't answer, instead pretending not to hear and skedaddling from the room. The pair were silent for almost ten seconds before the first giggle passed Ivy's lips.

And then they laughed.

"Oh dear, I needed that," the ravenette stated, wiping a tear from her eye.

"Quite cathartic, indeed," Tom confirmed.

"I don't think he's going to forget that one any time soon."

"Shall we head to Diagon? It's going to take us a while to walk there."

"We can take the bus; I have a few pennies saved up under my mattress that should suffice."

####################################################################

"Room for two more?" Tom drawled as he leant into the compartment containing three first year boys already.

"What's your name?" the nearest replied, a boy with even black hair swept to the side.

"Tom Riddle," he stated evenly, not even flinching as they all sneered in sync.

"Get lost, mudblood," the blond on the other bench commanded imperiously.

"Looks like we need to go elsewhere, Ivy," Tom said casually as he turned from the compartment, making a casual gesture at his heavy steamer trunk as he did which made it lift up off the floor to float beside him.

"Wait!" declared the black-haired boy as they started to move away, "how did you do that?"

"Oh, this?" Tom gestured to the floating case dismissively, "magic, I would have thought that to be obvious."

"That's wandless and wordless…" he trailed off, "alright, you can sit with us." With a slightly smug smile, Tom moved to sit down next to the blond boy, a hand gesture setting his trunk to rest above. When Ivy moved to follow, a hand was held up to stop her. "Not you." Ivy set upon him a hard emerald stare, unblinking as she raised a single black eyebrow. After a moment, she held her left palm out, facing upwards, watching as everyone's attention moved to that appendage.

"Gehenne Ignitia," she said in a voice barely above a whisper, but easily audible in the small space. Three sets of eyes widened as a serpent of orange flame flared into existence on her palm, writhing and wrenching upwards as it extended blazing fangs in a snarl. With a snap, her palm was closed, and the snake gone as the spell was broken and three children stared at her open-mouthed. Wordlessly, the boy who had been blocking her way moved to let her pass, whereupon she flicked her hand to levitate her trunk to the luggage rack and seated herself next to Tom, by the window. ' _How's that for one-up-man-ship, O' Brother mine?_ '

' _Overkill, Ivy, is the word you were looking for_ ,' he replied amusedly, ' _still, I'm almost impressed by your wordless illusion charm you casted with your wand while they were looking at your other hand._ '

' _I'm not stupid enough to actually summon Fiendfyre on the train to Hogwarts_.'

"My name is Arcturus Black, heir to the Ancient and Noble House of Black," the first boy stated imperiously as he closed the compartment door. "This is Abraxas Malfoy, heir to the Noble House of Malfoy," he gestured at the blond, "and this is Romulus Lestrange, heir to the Ancient House of Lestrange." ' _We're all pureblood, and heirs to Houses and that makes us more important than you_ ,' Ivy translated silently in her head.

"Tom Riddle, heir to the Ancient House of Gaunt," Tom replied smoothly, "and this is my twin sister, Ivy." The ravenette didn't acknowledge them in the slightest at her name, instead gesturing upwards to summon a book as her trunk clicked open, and her wandless magic deposited an advanced tome on Arithmantic theory in her hands.

"I thought the House of Gaunt had gone extinct?" Abraxas queried.

"All but, the one other member is residing in Azkaban, and we were only made aware of our connection to the family after taking an inheritance test at Gringotts," her 'brother' stated.

"What are you reading?" the previously quiet Romulus inquired as he stared at the sole girl in the room. Ivy pretended not to have noticed him for several seconds before looking up with an annoyed expression.

"Just a book on the Arithmantic properties of numbers and their application with runes and enchanting," she replied nonchalantly before returning to her seventh year text.

"My father said enchanting wasn't covered until sixth year," the boy stated dubiously.

"Seventh, actually, on the current syllabus," Ivy responded without looking up.

"There's no way you could understand anything in there," he nodded at the leather bound book. Her reply was simply a raised eyebrow, but Ivy did note the attention of the cabin was once more focused on her.

With a sigh, she closed the book, moving a scrap of paper to be her bookmark as she did, and while gesturing with her off hand at the compartment door, where the blinds fell – obscuring the room from any onlookers. In an almost bored way, she flicked her wand out to her right hand and started drawing runes in the air, drawing the ambient magic into holding shape. Within a few seconds, three Futhark runes hung in mid-air, just barely visible as shimmers where there shouldn't be.

"Epoto," she incanted while jabbing her wand at them, watching as they glowed white and a ripple passed through the space, making the residents shiver.

"What was that?" Arcturus demanded hurriedly with wide eyes.

"Runic Casted silencing charm, channelled by three runes, stabilised in a trigonal planar arrangement," Ivy answered, watching as the glow faded and the symbols returned to an almost imperceptible trick of the light.

'You do realise runic casting comes under Dark Magic and isn't quite legal?' Tom sent across to her.

'Not yet; only after the war and post Grindelwald,' she replied calmly as she settled back into her book.

A/N: That's as far as I ever got, though I added the occasional scene over the months - as you can probably tell from the title, I started writing this around the time of the first Suicide Squad trailer. Oh, and the thing about asylums; I have absolutely nothing against trans-gendered persons, however that was set in 40's England when homosexuality was still illegal and had various 'treatments' for it, and I thought they might want to take advantage of the situation in any possible way to make Dumbles feel uncomfortable.

Unrelated Omake: Immortals

"Bishop takes knight, check," Harry enunciated clearly, surveying the board carefully as the animated figures moved to account for his orders.

"King to rook two," was the response, and the black piece slid over a space, the regal figure looking stoically ahead as the ivory ones eyed him with bloodlust.

"Rook to king's rook three, check," the raven-haired man stated, watching the men in his castle tower jumping up and down by the miniature ballista. "By the way, how's the Eastern campaign going?"

"Oh, as well as can be expected. The Russians are quite spread out as far as their magical communities go and somewhat disordered after the Soviet collapse. It's the heavy centres of population where I'm facing issues," his opponent replied amiably, albeit not looking up from the marble and obsidian board of high quality. "Bishop to rook three."

"Bishop takes bishop," Harry immediately countered.

"Had a feeling you'd do that," the other man responded. "Oh, by the way, I think one of your friends died on a raid in Brussels. Finnegan I believe his name was. Rook to bishop four."

"I don't recognise the name," Harry stated disinterestedly, "rook takes rook."

"Really? I'm fairly sure you shared a dorm with him for several years at Hogwarts, and then he was a member of your little army. Pawn takes rook."

"Bishop to bishop seven," Harry paused for a moment while mulling it over, "Hogwarts was a long time ago."

"Still, I believe he's been flying your flag for years – believes fully in the boy-who-lived legend and whatnot. Queen takes knight-pawn."

"Probably why I've forgotten him; you know how much I disliked the groupies. Bishop to bishop eight, mate."

"Oh bugger," fell from pale lips as the man in a dark cloak finally leaned backwards. "I think I almost preferred it when you were young and inexperienced; I won a lot more often."

"Yes, but the victories were meaningless, Tom," Harry replied as he stroked his beard, finally looking up at his pale-skinned companion. "Same time next week?"

"Afraid not; I have a prisoner and Bellatrix is aching to torture him but I need to get some information first," the man known colloquially as Lord Voldemort replied sadly.

"One of mine?"

"Yes, I think so."

"Could you drop me the location once you have your info – you know how good a successful rescue mission is for morale."

"Oh, of course," the other man said genially as he stood, "wouldn't do for them to start doubting their lord and saviour." Both of them rolled their eyes – slightly glowing red and dull emerald green alike.

"I do sometimes wonder about the intelligence of most the people on this planet – you'd think perhaps one of them would have the brains to realise we're playing out 1984 using them as pieces on the chessboard of the world."

"Welcome to misanthropy, first bastion of immortals such as we. See you a week on Sunday? Normal time?"

"Sounds good."

"Until then."

 **A/N: Just a little scene that popped into my head. And the chess game is stolen directly from the finale of the second Sherlock Holmes film with RDJ.**

Another unrelated Omake: Do you feel lucky?

 **A/N: This is one that's been stuck in my head for a while, and I was originally hoping to use it in Call Me Moriarty, but I don't think I can make it work. So, instead it's going up here as a standalone scene. Enjoy!**

The storage room was drab, and dingy, and lit by only a few loose bulbs hanging from the ceiling. There was an occasional drip of water into puddles in the corner that really gave off the clichéd horror film vibe, not least added to by the six men in a row, naked but for underwear and tied to chairs. All their heads perked up as one as a door opened behind them, necks craning to try and see the source of the sound. The regular clicking of boot heels sounded across the concrete floor, and a familiar ravenette with a lightning-bolt scar moved into view. Said dark hair was long, unkempt and scraggly, reminiscent of her deceased godfather, and his cousin for that matter.

"Well, look what I've got," Ivy, for that was her name, began in a dead voice, "six marked Death Eaters; murderers, rapists and bigots all. And I have a need for information."

"We ain't telling you shit!" one of the men exclaimed, spitting towards her. The woman didn't reply for a long moment, before a grey implement was pulled from the pocket of her long, dark coat.

"Do you know what this is?" she queried nonchalantly while waving it about. "It's a Webley Mark Six Service Revolver, four-fifty-five calibre. Saw use in World War Two in the hands of my grandfather – Major General Sir John Evans, KCB, DSO. Quite a military history on my mother's side of the family; no less than three DSO's within the last four generations, and a VC going back five, and all that culminates in me. Holding this pistol that has already claimed plenty of lives."

"You'd threaten us with a silly muggle toy?" one asked with a chuckle, setting off a round of similar amusement amongst his fellows that died out looking at the ravenette's cold, hard eyes of rough-hewn emerald. Said ravenette sighed with exaggeration, understanding what needed to be done here.

"You still don't seem to understand, so I'm going to have to explain it to you." She cracked open the pistol and pulled out a cartridge, holding the bronze cylinder with its hemispherical end up to the light. "You see this? It's a bullet; this gun holds six of them in this little rotating chamber." She slotted it back in calmly, snapping the gun back into shape and levelling it at the nearest death eater – who happened to be the youngest and least likely to know anything. "This is what a bullet will do when it is fired." The cracking retort was deafening as it echoed around the warehouse, however the sickening snap and the view of what had previously been a living person was more what the captured men were concentrating on, however. "And there's the fear I was looking for. Now, are we all sitting comfortably?" Several men tried to struggle in their bonds at her childish tone reminiscent of Voldemort's top woman when she was in a mood – probably Black blood or something. "You are? Good. I want you all to watch this carefully." She held up her revolver to the light, letting them see as she snapped it open to reveal the five remaining cartridges, of which she promptly removed four slowly and deliberately. "Now," she snapped it shut, "you see there is only one bullet left in here." She rolled the rotating barrel, letting the noise echo once more. "And I don't know which chamber it's in. Right now, odds are one in six that it's about to be fired." She placed it right in the centre of the next nearest man's bald forehead, looming over him with menace as she softly whispered as if to a child, "and every time I pull the trigger," there was a click as she did just so, and the man below her looked ready to pass out, "the odds get less in your favour – since there's only five chambers left, it's a one in five chance that the next time I fire it will split your head open just like your friend over there." She didn't move from her eye contact with baldy, merely gesturing at the cooling corpse to his right. "So, this is how it's going to work; I'm going to ask each of you a question, and if I don't like your answer…" another pull on the trigger, and another resounding click, "you are lucky aren't you? Still, it's a one in four now." She moved away and strolled casually down the line of tied up men. "Now, I will be starting in just a moment, but before I do, you all need to ask yourself one question. It's not ' _Will she pick me?_ ' or ' _Can I get away with not telling her the truth_ ' or even ' _Is that wet feeling in my pants piss?_ '. No, there's only one question you need to ask yourselves." Her grin was feral as she turned malice-filled emerald eyes on them. "Do I feel lucky?" With a sudden motion, she leapt at the next youngest person of the group they had captured – likely around twenty by his hairstyle – and straddled him as the revolver was pressed to his sweaty forehead. "Well, do you? Punk?"

And another unrelated piece: The Sound of Music

 **A/N: I've been wanting to do a musical thing into HP for a while, but never seemed to find the right way to do it (beyond having an enchanted orchestra playing the 1812 Overture during the Weasley attack on Umbridge). Here's a little idea that came to me for it.**

September First, 1991 was an important day for one Hermione Granger. For it was upon this day that she would be joining the ranks of Hogwarts students as a witch! To say she was excited was an understatement of gratuitous proportions.

Of course, now she just needed to find the damned platform.

"Maybe we should try asking another attendant?" posed her mother, Emma, as the worried looking woman walked behind her, occasionally checking her watch.

"They'll just think we're barmy for asking for a platform which doesn't exist, like the last one," her husband replied.

"There's got to be someone! The train leaves in five minutes," the girl stated in concern, worrying her lower lip anxiously.

It came as quite a surprise when she received a quick double tap on her right shoulder. Spinning on her heel, she turned to face a slightly shorter child than herself; a boy with messy black hair, round glasses and bright green eyes, who also had a trolley of students' supplies with a snowy white owl atop. She was surprised he had managed to sneak up on her so quietly, but he didn't leave her time to ponder such as he pointed over across the station. Past the end of his finger, and across the way, could be seen a red-headed family led by a harried looking dumpy woman; and each of the children had similar collections of items to herself and the nameless boy.

"Ah, they look like they know where they're going," Emma said in relief, and the quartet – which had become so without three of the members realising as much – quickly wove through the small crowds in the station to the family just as they neared a pillar between platforms nine and ten.

"Er, excuse me, but are you headed to Platform Nine and Three Quarters?" Daniel Granger inquired of the woman, trying to sound confident saying the outright ludicrous name.

"Ah, muggleborn family I take it?" the mother of the ginger brood replied kindly.

"That's right," Hermione said eagerly.

"Well, you just need to go through the barrier over there," the woman pointed even as her eldest child did just that, seemingly disappearing through the grey stone brickwork.

"Thank goodness we found you; we were beginning to worry about missing the train," Emma said gratefully as they moved through the way onto the platform in ones and twos. Of course, her mother's comment made Hermione think of the boy that had pointed out the family to them, and then remained unobtrusively, almost invisibly, to the side, and was even now following them as the last person through the barrier between the two stations. Making her mind up, she approached him with a smile.

"Hello, I just wanted to say thank-you for the pointer earlier; I don't know what we would have done otherwise," she said in greeting. The child simply smiled and gave a nod of thanks. "Um, I didn't catch your name earlier – mine's Hermione Granger, by the way – what's yours?" At this he frowned, and shook his head awkwardly at her query. "What?" she asked in confusion. In reply, he tapped a pair of fingers against his neck twice, and the bushy-haired bibliophile finally understood as she noticed the silvery scars there. "Oh, you can't…er." She blushed, feeling awkward as many people did upon confronted with someone with a disability, suddenly wanting to look anywhere but at the scars her eyes seemed drawn to. "I, ah, I guess I look forward to seeing you at Hogwarts!" She tried a smile that he returned slightly, before dashing away back to where her parents were standing with the ginger matriarch – her cheeks reddened all the way.

Of course, within moments she felt terrible for her action of leaving as soon as the boy was revealed to have a problem speaking, but by then he had disappeared into the bustling crowd.

####################################################################

"Come along, I'm sure we can find him somewhere," Hermione stated firmly as she pulled the pudgy-faced blond boy behind her. Perhaps she was being a _little_ overeager in her desire to find his toad, but after the awkward meeting with the nameless mute on the platform earlier, she felt she needed to recompense her karma or the like.

Her passage down the train stilled, however, as her ears picked up chords of music floating down the corridor.

"What is that?" Neville inquired confusedly as he too heard the musical notes from a stringed instrument, the same question that was in Hermione's mind even as her mouth started moving faster than her brain almost as if from muscle memory.

"Fast falls the eventide," she muttered while barely realising it, her head cocking to the side slightly as it clicked in her head, "the darkness deepens, Lord with me abide."

Curiously, the girl strode forwards in search of the music, and finally stopped in front of a cabin a few doors down. Through the glass window, she could see the small room had only one occupant; the boy she had met earlier. He was facing away from her, but his hair and clothing were recognisable even as he held a violin between his shoulder and chin.

As the boy finished the verse, Hermione was struck by how well he performed on his instrument – drawing out the notes beautifully in the classic hymn. At the end of the verse he stilled, and seemingly instinctively turned around to see his voyeur. Hermione immediately blushed, much as she had done earlier, and scurried off while dragging Neville behind her – feeling like she had interrupted something private with someone she had already made a bad impression on.

####################################################################

The moment 'Potter, Harry,' was called, the entire hall seemed to hold their breath suddenly, and eager eyes turned towards the small group of remaining children to be sorted. From among them a familiar face stepped, and Hermione's eyes widened. The boy she had likely alienated was the bloody boy-who-lived of all people!

She seemed to shrink down in her seat, her red blush clashing with her blue-trimmed robes. She was trying so hard to avoid looking at him that she nearly missed the hat calling Hufflepuff – though one could hardly miss the thunderous applause from the badger's table that came with it.

####################################################################

It wasn't until halfway through November that Hermione once again heard the notes being played on a violin weaving through the air, this time in a tower not far from Ravenclaw. Carried by her feet almost without thinking about it, she moved towards the source of the music to find a familiar face sitting on a windowsill and looking out over the snow-coated land beneath. Almost without thinking, her well-trained mouth began picking up the words to what was once again a hymn she knew well from her traditional British education.

"In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan," she echoed along with the notes, only stilling as the boy's head whipped around to see her, suddenly feeling awkward once more. It was only at his small smile and a nod, as well as returning a bar backwards so that she could try again did she continue. "Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone. Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow. In the bleak midwinter, long ago."

As soon as the last word fell from her lips, she suddenly felt awkward, offset slightly by a smile from the boy opposite her. He stopped playing, sensing her discomfort and set his violin down before drawing a scrap of parchment and a pencil from a pocket. After a small bit of scribbling, the yellowed paper was handed over to her and the bushy-haired girl took it gingerly before reading.

' _You have a beautiful singing voice; you should use it more often_.'

"Thank-you, Harry," she replied, the sides of her lips tugging upwards at the compliment. "I'd say it was your playing which was brilliant." The seemingly humble child merely shrugged in reply while taking the piece of parchment she handed him back, scribbling another note upon it.

' _Would you care to try another?_ '

####################################################################

Hannah gave a relieved sigh as she heard the notes of a violin as she walked into the corridor of an unused tower. She was a proud Hufflepuff, and took their Head of House's instructions to look after Harry Potter well to heart – the boy had clearly known some trauma in how he lost his voice, and refused to 'say' anything about it. He had a real talent with music, though, as all the House had come to know. Whether it be the piano he had carried shrunken in his trunk that now sat in his dorm, his violin or brass instrument if he was feeling jaunty, he always seemed to have music dancing through his soul.

She slowed her pace to a more sedate one as the music got louder, already thinking of how she would approach the conversation ahead in how he should come back to the common room and socialise with the other 'Puffs a bit – they were all worried about his habit of running off to deserted corners of the castle, and Hufflepuff House stuck together. Her footsteps stilled, however, as a voice began singing with the tune.

"The holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown, of all the trees in the wood, the holly bears the crown." A peak around a corner unveiled a surprising sight; Harry was there on the windowsill with his violin, but he was joined by a Ravenclaw first year that Hannah recognised as Hermione Granger – someone that was notorious for having the best marks in their year, but being the most antisocial amongst her peers due to a 'bossy' personality.

The boy who couldn't speak a word, and the girl that wouldn't stop for breath.

With a slight smile on her face, the blonde girl turned and walked away. She'd come back later if he still hadn't turned up.

 **A/N: And that's all she wrote, as they say. Probably several more chapters of stuff I can put into this in various forms, but it's going to require digging through old docs and cleaning stuff up. Next chapter of CMM should be up this time next week, so see you all then.**


	2. International Rescuing

**A/N: Another thing dug from the dusty depths of my hard drive; just an odd idea, slightly based on my old childhood love of Thunderbirds (feels like a very long time ago.)**

 **Boys never actually grow up, their toys just get bigger.**

 **Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING, property of respective owners etc.**

International Rescue

Once upon a time, there was a boy called Harry. He spent a lot of time locked in his cupboard under the stairs, by his relatives, but occasionally he did get out.

For instance, there was a time when upon Dudley's birthday, the Dursley family went to a theme park - filled with rollercoasters and the like. Harry, naturally, was not invited. But, unlike normal times when they went away without him, Harry's relatives forgot to lock his cupboard door.

And so, after the trio had left the house, the messy haired boy tentatively opened the door and ventured into the empty house. His first port of call was of course the kitchen - the Dursleys half-starved him most of the time, though the advantage was of course that his appetite was small.

Once satisfied, he moved back through the house and stopped in the living room. There he stared curiously at the television; the electronic box that Dudley practically worshipped, but Harry himself had paid little attention to over the years. Cautiously, he reached out and pressed the 'on' button, causing the screen to flicker on and display the start of a programme.

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Thunderbirds are Go!" declared an authoritative American voice as images flashed across the screen.

For the next 200 minutes, he sat entranced in front of the screen as ITV played four episodes of 'Thunderbirds.'

From then on, he tried many a time to indulge his new hobby- managing to stand in the doorframe innocently as Dudley occasionally watched the puppet show, and using times when the Dursleys were out of the house to try and catch the programme.

And so, Harry Potter's life changed.

###################################################################

When the school teachers asked what children wanted to be when they grew up, they tended to expect silly answers like astronauts and cowboys, though perhaps less of that as they entered double digits.

Still, when asked the question at ten years of age, young Harry Potter didn't hesitate.

"A member of International Rescue," he said firmly, making the teacher's eyebrow raise.

"Really?" the man said curiously, "why?"

"To help people," Harry replied after thinking about it for a moment.

"Well, why don't you consider being a policeman? Or a fireman? Both of them help people," the man said, not unkindly.

"No," replied the child stubbornly, "I'm going to be a part of International Rescue." He said it so confidently, the teacher just didn't have the heart to say the normal things like 'it's not real,' instead moving on to the person next to him and leaving the boy's dream intact.

###################################################################

Time passed, and as in many universes, Harry Potter unexpectedly received an odd letter. Vernon Dursley reacted badly, going half mad to try and prevent the green-eyed youngster getting ahold of an envelope.

So Hagrid was required to chase the boy-who-lived down, and bring him to Diagon Alley to introduce him to the Wizarding world. The boy was most interested when the half-giant mentioned a flying motorbike.

"So you made it fly? How did it work mechanically?" he inquired eagerly.

"Er, I don' know to be honest, Harry," the large man replied. "Not my area of expertise - 'twas Sirius Black who enchanted it, and he leant it to me when I met him at your parents' house. Course if I'd have known then…" he trailed off, shaking his head sadly. "Don't do to talk about that, the man's in Azkaban where he belongs now."

"But people do know how to do that? Flying vehicles and stuff?" Harry asked, bringing the subject back to the fore.

"Yeah, there are a few who know how to enchant muggle stuff I guess," Hagrid consented, "Knight Bus was originally a normal bus after all, and plenty of other things. Best man to ask would be Arthur Weasley - he's an old friend a' mine. Might be able to find a few books on it in Flourish and Blotts as well, I guess."

And with those words, the child was gone, moving at the speed of someone driven to achieve their goal as he dashed towards the aforementioned bookshop.

###################################################################

"What's that you're reading?" inquired the bushy haired girl as she leant in the compartment doorway, her curious gaze on Harry's tome.

"A book on enchanting muggle objects," he answered.

"Oh? What do you want to enchant?" she asked quickly.

"Engines," he replied simply.

###################################################################

"That's a Nimbus Two Thousand! It's the fastest broom in the world," Ron exclaimed, running a hand reverently over the wooden shaft.

"How fast does it go, then?" Harry asked curiously.

"I heard it can reach a hundred miles per hour!" Seamus answered eagerly, jostling for a view of the broom.

"Oh? Is that it," Harry replied disappointedly, "it's not _that_ fast." He looked over into the middle distance, his mind filled with images of a rocket capable of fifteen- _thousand_ miles per hour.

###################################################################

"Hermione," Harry exclaimed, "she doesn't know about the troll."

"Oh, Merlin, that's right," his red-headed friend replied.

"We have to go and rescue her!" Harry stated firmly, grabbing the other boy's hand and dragging him along.

"Er, mate, she's probably not in danger right now, I don't think she needs rescuing."

"Shush, don't spoil my moment."

###################################################################

"We can perhaps use runic clusters to accelerate the burning fuel out the end," Hermione stated, pushing a sheet of paper with pencilled sketches over to her counterpart.

"Yes, but we still don't know what to use as fuel," Harry replied, though he looked over her suggestions with interest.

"Well, well, ickle firsties up late, what have we got here?" inquired one of the Weasley twins as they ambled over – his brother swiftly snatching the piece of draft-paper, which they both frowned at.

"What is this?" asked the other incredulously.

"A rocket," Hermione answered primly, grabbing it back.

"Like a firework?" the first twin queried.

"More like a ship," Harry replied with a small grin.

###################################################################

"No, no, we can solve the air problems relatively easily with the right charms, and only replace the stores every so often. The real problem with an orbiting station would be keeping it in a geo-synchronous orbit," Hermione said, rotating a small map to show the other gathered around the table. "If we want it directly above wherever we're based, it will have to be on the equator."

"So, maybe a Pacific island?" Harry asked tentatively.

"Well, yes, if you happen to have a few extra million quid rolling around," she replied drily.

"Well… now that you mention it," he said slowly, his mind's eye turning to a certain vault at Gringotts.

###################################################################

"One Philosopher's Stone," Harry said simply, placing the rough-cut gemstone on the table, making the group stare at the legendary artefact in wonder.

"How did you get it, Harry?" Fred – he could tell the twins apart by now – asked in awe.

"I told Nicholas and Perenelle exactly what I wanted to use it for – making our gold-titanium alloy to build a hull. Besides, they were going to destroy it anyway; they're kinda tired of life after six hundred years," Harry replied.

"What, they just let you have it?" George said incredulously.

"Well, they did make me swear never to use it to try and gain immortality – apparently it's more a curse than a blessing – and to keep its existence a secret, but I think they liked the idea of their creation doing some good in this world," he stated. "Either way, we're that one step closer now."

"Yeah, just a few more million to go," Ron added drily.

###################################################################

"Hello, Harry Potter," said an airy voice behind the boy, and he spun to see a blonde girl skipping up beside him to his place by the window. "It's a beautiful night out there, no?"

"Yes," he replied slowly, trying to remember the name of the first-year – a Ravenclaw by the blue and bronze tie. "I'm sorry, I've forgotten your name; who are you again?"

"Oh, it's quite alright, we've never actually met after all," she said in that same tone. "My name is Luna Lovegood."

"Nice to meet you, Luna. Erm, pardon me for asking, but why are you barefoot?" he gestured down at her feet, which were a tad pale, possibly due to the cold castle air.

"Oh, many of my things have been disappearing of late," she answered. "I think some people may be hiding them," she turned and gave him a look as if sharing a secret, "I suspect nargles are involved."

"Really," he said, doubtfully. "Tell me, Luna, have your roommates been treating you well recently?"

###################################################################

"Dobby?" Harry began tentatively.

"Yes Master Harry?" the diminutive elf replied eagerly.

"How interested would you be in a permanent position, doing something worthwhile?"

###################################################################

"Tell me, Sirius, how do you like the sound of a nice Pacific Island where there are no extradition orders, and some well-rounded knowledge of abstract invention was required?" Harry posed the question off-handedly, but with a slightly serious undertone.

"What?" he spluttered in return.

"Oh, and there may be dashing and daring-do involved."

"I'm listening."

###################################################################

"Cedric, duck!" Harry shouted quickly. The tousled-haired Hufflepuff didn't question it, but dropped speedily, a jet of green narrowly missing his head. Harry scanned frantically for options, before noticing the still lightly glowing Triwizard Cup. "Depulso," he incanted, and with a flick of his wand, the chalice was banished directly at a wide eyed Cedric. The boy only had the briefest of moments to register his surprise before he disappeared. "Well, at least one of us will survive this," he muttered, before he was caught by a stunner and everything went black.

###################################################################

"How did you escape?" Hermione asked fearfully, her hand clutching Harry's own as he lay in a Hospital bed.

"I called Dobby, of course," the raven-haired boy gestured to the house-elf sitting worriedly nearby, who grinned at the mention of his name. "I don't know why Voldemort didn't think to block it out, but he popped us both away." Several present flinched at the name, minus Dumbledore of course.

"Sometimes, even the most powerful of wizards overlook the very simplest of things," the old headmaster said sagely. "Now I'm afraid I must take my leave, there is much grave work to be done to prepare for Voldemort's next moves."

###################################################################

"Madame Umbridge, I think you'll find this is neither a student club nor group," Harry said calmly, as if the toad-faced woman had not just exploded her way into the Room of Requirement.

"Oh, really, and what would it be then, Mr Potter?" she sneered, triumph gleaming in her dark, piggy eyes.

"A company, Madame Umbridge, and you just interrupted a board meeting," he replied.

"And, as per the Hogwarts rules set down in the Nineteenth century for the case of a student having responsibilities to a business or House, and the general laws pertaining to places of work in Britain," Hermione added, "you have no right to stop us convening in the interests of the company without a Ministerial warrant for the arrest of one of our members – which I do not believe you have."

"What?" the woman spluttered, "and what company would you claim to have formed?"

"Hackenbacker Innovations," Harry answered, "and yes, we are registered with the Ministry for Magic, you can check. Now, if you don't mind, we would very much like to return to our matters of discussion." At the clear dismissal, the students returned to their seats at the table as if the toad-like woman simply was not there and was not currently doing a very good impression of Harry's uncle.

"So, I was thinking we should outsource the production of the pods to this group from China who offer very good rates," George began, sliding a piece of paper onto the overhead projector in the middle of the table, whereupon estimates for cost showed up on the opposite wall. "Of course price-per-pod will go down as we order more, so it would be better to get more at once – oh, are you still here Madame Umbridge? I'm afraid this is a private meeting, and we're going to have to ask you to vacate the premises, or be escorted from them if you so wish."

"Now, I've been thinking," Hermione continued, "what if we don't use multiple modules? With non-Euclidean geometry, we can fit far more inside a smaller space than should be technically possible."

Several among their number would wish they had a magical camera with which to capture the way Umbridge looked at that moment, but sadly their memories would have to do. Some claimed that from that moment onwards, their patronuses were always brighter.

###################################################################

"Construction's looks like it's proceeding apace," Harry commented as he looked around the large hangar bay.

"Yes Master Harry," Dobby stated, nodding fervently. From his side, Hermione winced at the term, but said nothing. She had gained something of a crash course about House Elf culture from members of the diminutive race, and had stopped trying to force them to change. "All the elves yous boughts off the market is being very eager to please Great Master Harry Potter, sir."

"Well, make sure to tell them from me, I am already very impressed," he assured the childlike creature who positively beamed in response.

###################################################################

"She's beautiful," the black haired teen said in wonder, placing a hand on the tough steel.

"Isn't she just," the redhead replied with a victorious smirk. "You know what we need to do now, though?"

"What?"

"Take her for a test drive," she replied, her eyes sparkling with glee.

###################################################################

" _Yesterday accounts for one of the few occasions a genuine Unidentified Flying Object, or UFO, has been documented by the United States Air Force. Spotted by many amateurs as well as the military, and pictured here, it appears to be the shape of a traditional rocket – pointed nose cone and all. Several professionals consulted gave estimates of its speed being in excess of twelve thousand miles per hour. Currently, all governments are denying knowledge of this vehicle, and it is uncertain to whom it belongs…"_

###################################################################

Hermione's scowl clashed distinctly with the laughing from the three redheaded boys, and one scraggly raven-haired man-child as the muggle newspaper was passed around.

"You were seen. Photographed even, and much too early on before we even start any missions. The island isn't even finished yet, and that was supposed to still be in prototyping stage. What would have happened if you were shot down? You know how trigger-happy the Americans are, and you flew right over their air-space!" the bushy haired girl sighed as she ended her tirade, a hand covering her face as she tried to calm herself. The two teens standing in front of her shuffled their feet awkwardly, not looking up from their shoes.

"Hermione, you're forgetting something," Ginny spoke up tentatively. The brunette looked through a gap between her fingers, silently motioning the redhead to continue. "It works. She flies like a dream, and we weren't even pushing the limits."

"Of course it works," she huffed in reply, "I designed it."

###################################################################

"He's dead," the bushy-haired woman stated, barely above a whisper.

"And buried," added the twins together.

"Yep," Harry said succinctly.

"I mean, the war's over," Ron continued.

"Yep."

"We didn't even have to bring out our trump cards," Hermione said.

"Mm-hmm."

"And now…" Ginny thought aloud.

"Oh yes," Harry replied with a grin, "it's time."

###################################################################

"You ready for this?" Ginny asked as she flicked her ponytail behind her head before donning her helmet.

"Born ready," Harry replied with a smile as he copied her. Their uniform was simple; a sky-blue jumpsuit, lined in dragon leather underneath for armour protection, a sapphire coloured helm with a black visor - completely obscuring their faces – and a darker blue bandolier, lined with pouches with what they might need, and crowned with their symbol over their hearts: A silver diamond with 'IR' engraved in black.

As they settled into their seats in the cockpit, they rotated around so they were facing upwards, looking directly at the underside of the swimming pool as it slid away to reveal clear blue skies.

"Firing up systems, power to jets," Ginny said aloud as both their hands danced across controls, HUD's updating as they did.

"Launching in three…two…," Harry slowly moved forward his hand resting on the bar, pushing it along to increase the thrust as they rocketed out of the hangar bay. "Switching to horizontal flight," he stated as they changed direction, levelling out to speed across the Pacific Ocean.

"Alright, you're heading back to Blighty set a course for Plymouth," Ron's voice commanded through the pilot's ears, "Luna, you mind briefing 'em?"

"Not at all," the normally dreamy blonde replied, deadly serious now from her position high above the Earth. "HMS Vanguard, Astute class nuclear submarine. Ran into some rocks just outside the Channel, hull has ruptured slightly in the rear engine bay, and though they've sealed it off, there is believed there might be some damage to the reactor. They're stuck on the seabed, and the mayday went out ten minutes ago. Local rescue operations stand a chance of getting down there in perhaps six hours at minimum, likely to take longer."

"Thank-you, Luna," Ron stated once she'd finished. "Now you're going to want to drop a probe to get a lay of what's going on down there, and then land locally and set up a base of operations. Remember, this is our first mission and we're revealing ourselves to the world, do not screw this up!"

"Orders received, over and out," Harry clipped out, "increasing speed to maximum."

"Mach 25, new world record, right there," Ginny commented, the grin as obvious in her voice even as the G-Forces were pressuring them into their seats, even through all the charms to keep them safe.

###################################################################

"Situation's a bit worse than it first looked; the rear of the sub is lodged under a fallen rock, that's what's applying pressure to it," Ginny stated, looking over the 3D map generated by the probe they had dropped in the sea minutes before. "If we want to move the sub, that will have to go first."

" _Can_ we move that?" Ron questioned over the radio as Harry guided the aircraft down for landing on the soft, green earth of England's pleasant land.

"If we can get a piton launched from Thunderbird One, I'd say so, yes. But I'm not sure it will hold or lodge in the rock, and we stand a chance of hitting the sub," Ginny replied with a frown, "at this point, I'd rather wait for Thunderbird Four than risk it."

"They're en route," Ron assured, "Thunderbird Two is thirty minutes out. Have you established contact with the sub?"

"Only just touched down, Ron," Harry replied drily, "Gin, can you do that while I set up the fence?" His question was posed as he unbuckled from his seat.

"Sure," she said quickly, already accessing radio frequencies. "I'll hail them now." Harry nodded in thanks before grabbing a set of metal poles, popping the lower hatch, and jumping down.

Even through the suit filters, he did take a moment to inhale the fresh sea air before he set to work. They had landed on the edge of a cliff, so near to the edge he planted one of the poles, moving on to the next as a piece of metal wire linked on to the next one, and a red light flickered to life on top. Once he was done, the fence bordered the craft, small showy arcs of electricity moving off the wire to show off what it was. There wasn't much running through it, just a small hex designed to keep people from approaching, and a compulsion charm to not cross the line.

He paused then, to look out across the briny sea, or more accurately _under_ it. Towards the stranded vessel under the waves. This, this was what he always dreamed of.

###################################################################

"Steady, steady," Cedric declared as he nudged the tubular submersible from his small yellow craft.

"We are being steady," Fred said from up above in the green-painted behemoth.

"You're the one pushing her around," George continued.

"Stop bickering and pull up on your left slightly," Ginny commanded her elder brethren as she carefully watched the readouts showing the sub being hauled up by twin cables attached to Thunderbird Two.

Finally, the dark grey metal of the sub breached the surface, quickly followed by Thunderbird Four's smaller mass. Cheering erupted from those surrounding Harry and Ginny on the hillside, and the crowd on the beach. As the sub was pulled over to the shallows and beached, the top hatch could be seen to be opened, and a figure crawling out to wave triumphantly at the aircraft above.

"I think," Harry stated tentatively, "that that's a job well done."

###################################################################

" _People in England today were baffled as fiction seemed to become reality. This is the first anyone has become aware of the group calling themselves_ International Rescue _, named after the popular television series of the same name, but they apparently are exactly what they claim to be. When a submarine wrecked itself on the seabed this morning, they were onsite, had pulled the wrecked vessel out of the water and were gone before anyone official had even arrived._

 _Plenty of video footage as well as photos of the group has emerged, and their vehicles appear as similar to their source material as the rest of the rescue. The members of this group were unavailable for comment, and their helmets obscure their faces so we currently have no idea exactly who they are, and what exactly they aim to accomplish, but many have celebrated the ideals they seem to champion._

 _Several military officials have expressed concern over their access to classified information to even know the submarine was in trouble, as well as their vehicles apparent abilities…"_

###################################################################

"That's about as positive as we're probably going to get," Ron commented, gesturing at the reporter on the screen with his glass of fire whiskey.

"I give it two weeks before the Americans claim we're a threat to their national security," Harry stated with concern in his voice.

"No, they'll wait until they have an excuse like 'violating' their airspace, or performing a mission on their soil," Hermione argued, pushing a pair of blue-rimmed glasses up her nose, "and it won't necessarily be them first. The Russians are just as likely, and even more trigger happy at the moment, and plenty of European governments likely won't be happy about us either."

"What we need to do is win the hearts of the people," the normally silent Neville spoke up, "pressure from them on their governments is the only way we'll be able to keep our autonomy without them interfering."

"He's right," Cedric added from beside him, "and it's probably the same thing we'll need to do in the magical world as well."

"Let's get established with the muggles before dealing with that kettle of fish," Ron amended, "when's the broadcast going out?"

"Tomorrow, 1pm GMT," Harry answered, still automatically defaulting to British time despite their position in the Pacific.

###################################################################

As the clock struck One on a little island in the North Sea, televisions across the world flickered, static filling every channel as satellite signals were hijacked, and every broadcaster began experiencing technical difficulties.

After a few seconds of static and white noise, the image cleared to show a young man with ruffled black hair, sharp emerald green eyes, and a sky-blue jumpsuit, leaning against a mahogany desk.

"Hello," he began, subtitles immediately being placed at the base of the screen, translated into different languages for appropriate countries. "Yesterday, some of you may have heard about the first outing of our organisation: International Rescue. Our aim is to help those in danger, wherever and whoever they are, no matter how dangerous the situation. There's nothing more to it, no small print, no ulterior motive, just a pledge to help. So, if ever you need us, all you have to do is call for help. It doesn't matter how, just call and we'll be there." He pushed off the desk and crossed his arms, his green gaze still fixated on the camera. "That's all I have to say really, other than that I hope you all watching this will never need us, but that you'll remember us if you do."

The man's parting words hung in the air for a moment, before static once more overcame the worldwide screens, and broadcasters once more resumed service just a little more confused than before.

###################################################################

1 Year Later

"And finally, the Nobel Prize for Peace. This is awarded to a person or persons who have achieved much in bringing our world together and in humanitarian efforts. Tonight, on behalf of the organisation he belongs to, this award is to be collected by Mr. H Hackenbacker, for International Rescue!"

The announcer's words grabbed much applause from the crowd as a single man with messy black hair – who looked rather uncomfortable in his tuxedo – stood up to walk across the stage. As he reached the announcer, hands were shook, and the golden medal presented. After having the stand gestured to, he slightly hesitantly approached the microphone.

"Thank-you," he stated as the applause died down, "this means a lot, really it does. We never ask for thanks – we do what we do because it needs to be done, not for any reward – but it is nice to know you're appreciated none-the-less. And I know every member of our organization is quite proud of how much we've achieved, and they're probably currently glued to a television screen right now. So on their behalf, I would like to say-," here he paused, frowning before a slim smartphone was pulled from his pocket, and he grimaced. He swiped the screen up, oblivious to the people in the hall, and the countless masses watching from elsewhere. "Apologies," he said after a moment, slipping the device back into its home, "but I'm afraid I'm going to have to cut short; duty calls. Good-night." A few people laughed before he ran at breakneck pace off the stage, hastily undoing his bowtie to reveal a hint of blue beneath his formal-wear.

###################################################################

" _Mere hours after their representative accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, Vladimir Putin has declared that if International Rescue ever enter any Russian or affiliated territory again, they will be shot out of the sky. This follows a mission of theirs into Ukraine with unknown goals. The Ukrainian government denies any knowledge of what the relief group was doing, but expressed similar feelings to Mr Putin."_

###################################################################

"Well, that's one way to introduce ourselves to the Wizarding world," Ginny said drily as she collapsed on a sofa, bone-weary to the extreme.

"Well we could hardly get away with doing nothing," Harry countered as he poured a glass of brown liquid from a decanter. "The whole reserve's worth of dragons rampaging across a national border and headed for a populated area; what the hell else were we supposed to do?"

"We did what was right," Ron affirmed as he walked in, grabbing the decanter from Harry. "Thunderbird Two is about an hour out; the twins sound exhausted, which is a bit weird."

"You try herding giant fire-breathing lizards," Harry replied darkly. "It's practically a miracle we got them all."

"Speaking of miracles; do you think the Prophet will be fair, or calling for interfering muggles to obliviated?" Ron posed.

"Pigs would sooner fly than that rag be fair or reasonable," Harry stated with surety. "We'll have an 'Obliviate-on-sight' order before the day is out."

 **A/N: And that's all she wrote, as they say. Basically as far as I got due to not knowing how to write the interaction with the Magical World, I believe. Can't really recall as I wrote this a while ago.**

Slightly Related Short: Lady Creighton-Ward

 **A/N: Little idea that popped into my head after watching the '04 Thunderbirds film, which is admittedly cheesy and not particularly great, but I was an old TB fan from when I was a kid. Just a little one-shot set maybe ten years after the film.**

 **Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING**

Lady Creighton-Ward

My face hurt slightly from smiling so much, but I kept it up as I sat across from the excitable man with his gesticulating hands. A frown did mar my features however when an insistent ringing came from my small handbag. A light shade of blue of course, to match my flowery blue kimono. When in Rome as they say.

"Excuse me, but I really must take this," I said in an apologetic tone.

"No problem, Lady Creighton-Ward," the man replied, bowing his head slightly as I snapped open the clasp on the bag and withdrew the silver flip-up phone.

"Parker?" I asked once the phone was open, for that ringtone came from the loyal man.

"An emergency has arisen, milady," he replied in his cockney accent retained after all these years.

"And I guess they need me?"

"That is correct, milady." I sighed, but duty comes first of course, any member of International Rescue has that tattooed upon their heart.

"Bring the car around; I'll be down in a minute."

"Of course, milady." After his acknowledgement, I snapped the device shut and stood.

"I'm terribly sorry, family emergency," I said to the waiting man.

"But, what about my proposal?" he replied with a worried face.

"I've seen enough," I stated clearly, to which his face fell, "you'll receive funding for your charity through the Creighton-Ward association. We'll work out the amount at a later date, but now I really must be going."

Without giving him a chance to reply, I moved over to the door and stepped through. As I hurried down the wide set of stairs to the lobby, I was distractedly removing my dangly earrings and slipping them into my handbag.

Opening the glass doors at the front of the building, Parker was awaiting me beside FAB 1, the black glass of the back section raised and the door open for me to step in. Once I was seated, Parker moved to his own position and calmly closed the tinted roof section.

"What's the situation?" I questioned him as I started opening my kimono and stripping down to underwear. Parker, to his merit, only looked back once and didn't bat an eyelid, remaining the consummate professional. Of course the loyal manservant had seen worse over the years.

"Issue at a nuclear plant in Australia, milady," he dutifully replied as I pulled my uniform from a hidden locker; white trimmed with light blue, distinguishable from Scott's darker shade.

"And I suppose they need technical assistance?" I assumed as I pulled the lower half of the jumpsuit up my olive-toned legs. I was something of International Rescue's in-the-field techie, having studied under Brains for a number of years back on the island, and going on to take a doctorate in engineering at Oxford University. Of course the prestigious university was only one reason I had studied in England. My greatest achievement, with Brains' and Fermat's help naturally, was the Spectre. Currently held in a dock house nearby, it was a rapid response vehicle based on a helijet. Incredibly light, capable of hovering carefully, and landing on water, not to mention nearly as fast as the original Thunderbird 1 engines; seven thousand miles per hour. "Do tell Penny I'm sorry I missed our dinner," I said with a slight sad tinge to my voice.

"I'm sure she will understand, milady," Parker replied.

"I know, but a few errands aside this was supposed to be a romantic vacation," I said, thinking to my beautiful blonde with her impeccable fashion sense, and an air of elegance I had never seen on another woman.

It was almost funny, how everyone had expected me to be with Alan one day, even Lady P herself. But I had grown up with the guy, and true, experimented as a teen, as people do, but he just didn't quite work with me as an adult. Yes he had matured, was less of a jerk, and was a reliable member of IR, but he was more of a brother figure than anything else, the same went for Fermat. Fermat was my adorably nerdy little brother, and he loved how his sister was capable of keeping up with his speculation, theory and designs. Well, most of the time. I could swear the guy has an even greater IQ than his father!

No, in the end it could only be the elegant enigma, the fighting woman in an aristocrat's disguise. I always equated her to something of a female James Bond, just with a predilection for pink.

"We have arrived, milady," Parker stirred me from my reverie, and I hastily did up the final clasp around my neck and stepped from the vehicle.

"Thank you Parker," I said with a smile. The long-suffering man had always been there in the many years I'd known him. "Oh, and Parker?" I started to add as he made to close the roof after me.

"Yes, milady?"

"I would, ah, make sure to knock carefully on her door," I stated, "she said something about whipped cream earlier…"

"Of course, milady," the man replied without batting an eyelid. I always wondered how he managed that.

I gave a final nod to him, and moved over to the warehouse, pressing a remote in my hand to open the waterfront doors to reveal my beauty of a craft. As I walked into the building, a hand moved up to turn on my earpiece.

"This is Spectre calling International Rescue," I said clearly into the air as I climbed up onto my small ship.

"Tin-Tin, good to hear from you…"

Fin

 **A/N: Okay, I know, pretty random and far-fetched, but it came from my wondering the other day about gay marriage (which I'm in favour of by the way) and how it affects titles, such as lord/lady, and royal ones as well. Can a King have a King? A Queen a Queen? And of course in this case, a Lady a Lady. Just a thought that simmered until re-watching the film and having thoughts about her ladyship, and a little fic where I would hide the fact it wasn't Lady P until later on.**


	3. Prompts

**A/N: So, I started this on the 28** **th** **June, the same day I took my last exam (thank god they're over and done with). I am now in the situation that I haven't written anything for a while, and I need to get into the groove again. So, I took a couple of prompts based on stuff I've seen or done recently, and decided to see what happened. Annoyingly, it's been slow going. While once I could knock out a CMM chapter in one afternoon (which occasionally hit 9k words) I now struggle to do 1k in one sitting. I am really rusty, and annoyingly I have a fair amount still on my plate. I know I've broken my promise in regards to CMM, but I just ask you guys to bear with me.**

 **Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING, property of respective owners etc.**

Prompt One : Alien Invasion (XCOM)

To say that the XCOM facility was secure would perhaps be an understatement. Actually, it would be the understatement of the century. Based deep in the South American jungles, and further inside an old cave network far underground sat the base. To even get near it undetected meant going through numerous traps, past innumerable sensors, and avoiding the satellites constantly pointing at the ground above. It was a herculean effort, and one that the designers of the base had been sure could not be achieved without alerting those within to their presence long beforehand.

This meant that the incredibly loud, echoing of four knocks upon the main exterior door leading into one of the tunnels to the surface was decidedly unexpected, and therefore met with appropriate action.

"Still no view from the cameras on the outside?" the man with a buzz cut and a military green jumper demanded as he walked towards the large metal doors with a hand on his earpiece.

"Negative, sir. Nothing from less than five minutes ago available," came the reply through the comms unit. The man frowned, surveying the men and women hefting rifles and pointing them towards the sealed entrance. "Open it up," he commanded after a few moments, removing his own standard issue pistol from its holster as he did, training it dead centre on the circular portal. It took a few seconds, but the door did spiral open, revealing an odd sight.

In the tunnel entranceway beyond, and just lit by the very early morning light was a motley group of characters, most hefting bags and backpacks, all fairly young, none above twenty five for sure. All in civvies, the military man noted, but on closer observation there were signs he could easily pick out – he'd seen them often enough in his service after all. A certain tension in many limbs, eyes darting quickly between each weapon trained on them, the way they turned themselves slightly to be in best position to leap into action; these weren't civilians. None more held this true than the man in front, thin and perhaps a little short; the young man had short stubble and emerald green eyes under a pair of spectacles, topped by messy black hair. His clothes were just as casual – jeans, some kind of band shirt he didn't recognise, a leather jacket – but his stance was firm, shoulders back, and the air of command about him that any military man could recognise.

"State your name, rank and intention," he ordered as he stared down the unfamiliar man, not letting his pistol drop from where it was trained on him.

"Ah, you must be Central Officer Bradford, I presume," the man replied calmly in an English accent, seemingly not bothered by the weapons aimed at him or his peers.

"State your name, rank and intention," Bradford repeated, not letting any surprise show at how the man knew his name.

"Sir Harry James Potter, late Captain of the Aurora Corps, here as representative of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland," he rattled off, "here to brief the… 'Commander' on a slight change to the situation and declassify a few things. That declassification protocol extends to one Central Office Bradford, and Doctors and , and anyone further at the Commander's discretion."

"Under whose authority?" Bradford queried.

"Elisabeth Regina's," Harry, as he was now identified as, stated, before turning to those behind him. "Find a break room and wait for orders, I'll go sort things out." As he turned his gaze back on the base's second in command, he let out a slight grin. "Take me to your leader."

########################################################################

"Ah, Doctor Shen, please sit down, we were just waiting for you," the Commander gestured at the last remaining chair from his place behind his desk. The fact he'd only been awake for a time best measured in minutes wasn't at all obvious from the cool, collected appearance of the man who had waited for the members of their group to show up before the strange intruder spoke.

"Sorry, these old bones don't move as fast anymore. So this is the head of the group that waltzed past all our security," the man eyed Potter up and down from where he was sipping a cup of tea. "You mind telling us how?"

"That would be why you're all here," he took another sip before setting the cup down. "This room is secure, I'm assuming?"

"You're standing in the most secure location on planet Earth. I should know, I designed it," Shen answered, the last part more a grumble.

"Alright then. Well, to start off with the legal requirements; the land of Britain is currently under threat and a state of war has been declared in response to something that could lead to the end of our nation. As such, circumstances have dictated the terms of Article Eight of the Statute of Secrecy be activated; in time of war and in dire need, the Statute of Secrecy may be lifted where necessary," Harry sounded quite bored reciting the terms from memory. "An alien invasion of Earth makes it pretty damn necessary, and so I am authorised to tell you the truth. Magic is real."

Four sets of eyes blinked at him, wondering if they'd misheard before the man slipped a stick of wood from his sleeve into his hand, and flicked it at the ashtray on the Commander's desk. As the crystal ornament began to float into the air, several brains stopped working briefly. Naturally, the Commander recovered first.

"Hm, okay then," the man stated, staring at his floating ashtray.

"What," Shen mumbled as his precious laws of Physics were torn apart, set alight and danced upon before his eyes.

"Remarkable," was Vahlen's contribution as her eyes were set alight, "I had theorised as to the psionic ability of the aliens, but to see it occur naturally in humans… I presume this is natural, yes?"

"Yeah, I was born a wizard," Harry replied, flicking what could now only be called a wand to set the ashtray back down. The German woman's nose wrinkled at the term 'wizard' as if she found such a fanciful thing insulting, but before she could voice a complaint, Bradford interjected.

"What exactly is it you can do?" the man asked curiously.

"Almost anything you can imagine and quite a lot more," Harry answered, "there are rules and limits of course, which I am reliably informed obey the laws of physics in a roundabout way, or so I'm told." He directed the latter point at the engineer who was still staring at the stationary piece of crystal.

"And the people you brought with you…" Bradford inquired further.

"All magical, and all twelve have combat experience, albeit a slightly different form of combat," Harry replied with a note of pride in his voice. "All hereby placed under your orders, Commander." The man behind the desk stayed silent for a few moments, before a slight smile graced his face.

"Well, let's get to work then," he eventually stated.

########################################################################

"How're the combat trials running?" the Commander inquired as he walked up beside Bradford, who was staring through a sheet of glass at the people moving beyond.

"Well, but…unorthodox, sir," he answered without turning around.

"Is he using a sword?" the Commander said incredulously as he watched one of the figures decapitate a training dummy with a silver blade.

"That's Longbottom. He managed to persuade me to let him test out with that thing; he knows how to use it, and the blade is poisoned with a venom that kills in less than a minute. He also grabbed a shotgun, and he's been using the combination to his advantage."

"You think we should let him into the field like that?"

"It's unconventional, but… they all are really. Potter and Lovegood are the best damn shots I've ever seen; he can fire two pistols at two separate targets and hit both, and she hasn't missed once with her sniper rifle while barely looking at her target." At that moment, wide blue eyes turned to look at the pair from a blonde-framed face, a smile dancing upon her lips before she turned back to resume firing, hitting another bullseye.

"As ludicrous as it sounds to say this, but is it possible she could have some precognitive ability?"

"I'll have to ask Doctor Vahlen once she's done interrogating Granger on magical theory."

"I don't envy Granger right now."

"Actually, when I last checked she was comfortably lecturing while drawing diagrams. She looked in her element."

"Better strike her off the combat list then; Vahlen won't want to let go of such an asset."

"Yes, Commander."

 **A/N: I absolutely loved XCOM: Enemy Unknown, I've now played it through at least a half-dozen times and it remains one of my favourite games of all time. Needless to say, I was hyped for the sequel, and extremely frustrated that it came out right in the revision period. So I waited until these holidays, and finally bought it and obsessively played for several days. It definitely lives up to the original, though I am disappointed by the DLC a bit. Still, that's where this came from.**

 **On another note, "Things XCOM Operatives are not allowed to do" is an extremely funny google doc compilation if you look it up of golden pieces of comedy from the Spacebattles forums, and with a lot of backstories as well. Really worth a read, and I would link it if this site allowed such things. (All hail to the Great Commandy One).**

Prompt Two: Airships (Steampunk)

Chaos reigned aboard the good ship ' _Caspartine'_ as smoke poured from the starboard side, men and women in stained clothing rushed hither and yon with supplies or tools desperately trying to fix things, and the ship slowly descended from its position in the dusty skies between high cliff faces, the balloon above the mixed wooden and metal deck deflating little by little.

Almost none of this was noticed by the ginger man waving a socket wrench as he engaged in a shouting match with a brunette wearing an intricate brass device over her right eye. They did notice when their own shouting match was drowned out by the Captain's roar as he emerged onto the deck.

"All Hands! Shut down the engines and haul to starboard, make for the ledge in the cliff to the North East. Get me some more lift on those balloons or we're going down!" the black haired young man bellowed.

"Hard Starboard, aye sir!" came the call from the blond man at the aft of the ship, making a quick turn on the helm.

"Hermione, Ron," the growl made the pair that had been moving off to do their assigned jobs still, and gulp simultaneously. "I'll want an explanation when we land."

########################################################################

"It was his fault," Hermione stated firmly, pointing at Ron, while at the same time he stated "It was her fault," while motioning at her.

"No it wasn't," they both replied.

The Captain, for his part, massaged his brow with an extreme effort of patience.

"Both of you, shut up," he commanded, and two mouths shut immediately. "My ship is sitting, grounded, and with the main engine blown, so I would like an explanation. Ron, you first."

"There was a spike in oil pressure," the young man started, "so I went to the engine room and found her messing with the machinery."

"I was not messing with it, I was-," the woman was silenced by the withering glare she was quickly given. After a few moments, the Weasley continued.

"So I tried to stop what she was doing, I pulled her out from under the gearbox and then she tried to attack me, and _then_ the engine…exploded a bit."

"Define 'a bit' for me."

"Regulators are shot, several gaskets blew, and we've lost integrity in the boiler," Ron stated while scratching the back of his head. "Pumps to the balloon I can fix in an hour or so, the engines, not so much."

"What do you need?"

"Parts we don't have on-board, and a lot more time."

"Right," the Captain replied, massaging the bridge of his nose. "Hermione, if you will."

"Well, you know we had to clean out the steam pipe of scale problems last time we were in port?" the bushy-haired woman began, "well, I came up with a silver filter that would react with the particulates and stop them from clogging up the pipe. I was _trying_ to fit it when Ronald pulled me out."

"Hermione," the Captain began slowly, "what was it I told you outside Riga last year?"

"Erm," she gulped audibly. "Never to experiment on the ship while in flight, and to ask you before I make any changes," she admitted quietly. "And I know I lapsed, but it was just a small modification to make things a bit easier for everyone."

"A small thing which resulted in us being grounded," the Captain countered.

"I'm sorry, Harr-Captain," she quickly corrected herself. The man stayed silent for several moments before seemingly making up his mind.

"When we reach Hogton, you'll be pulling double shifts to get that engine fixed, and will receive no shore leave. Am I clear?"

The woman nodded her head sadly, accepting the punishment with dignity. Inside of course, she was mourning not being able to visit the large city-like dock of many levels spiralling upwards around a Cliffside. Not be able to visit the Hogsmeade shopping district, or the Hogwarts school library she so loved.

"Understood, Captain."

"Good," he then turned to the rest of the crew who were gathered around, "Ron, I want that balloon pump fixed as soon as humanly possible, the rest of you; we have no iron sails, so we'll have to finish the journey to Hogton with regular ones. Deploy the side sails and pray for a favourable wind." As the crew dissipated to go to their tasks, the Captain lightly grabbed the scientist's arm to stop her leaving. "I'm sorry to keep you from Hogwarts, Hermione, but you know I can't go easy on you just because of who you are. Especially because, in-fact."

"I know, and I understand, Harry," she replied with a smile, and a small peck on his lips, "it was my mistake and my fault, I'll take it as well-deserved."

"If you're good, though, I just might see if I can grab a few books for you."

"Oh, and what constitutes being 'good,' _Captain_ ," she almost purred the title with a sultry smile.

"You'll just have to impress me," Harry replied with a grin.

"Now that sounds like a challenge," Hermione said softly as she walked away, sashaying her hips a bit as she did. Harry allowed himself to stare for a moment before the Captain was once more reasserted.

"Helmsman!" he yelled, turning towards the back of the ship, "you want to tell me what that bump was as we landed?"

 **A/N: Stardust is a film I'm fond of, and I don't think it gets enough recognition. It certainly has one of the best soundtracks I've heard, and is a nice story (though I've heard the original version has slightly less of a happy, Fairy-tale ending.) Anyway, was watching the film, and the airship reminded me of when I briefly played Guns of Icarus a long while back. Idea spiralled from there.**

 **WARNING: This next one holds spoilers for Borderlands 2.**

Prompt Three: Tales From…

The Borderlands were not a kind place; everybody knew this. Every day you lived there, you had a pretty high chance of dying there too. Whether it was one of many bandit clans after territory, some outta-town mega-corporation trying to open a vault full of deadly Kaiju, one of the many native nasties including (but not limited to) Skags, Varkids, and the occasional semi-invincible Thresher, or maybe it was just another psycho wanting to eat your left testicle or wear your face.

No, the Borderlands, and the planet Pandora as a whole really, were not a kind place.

And yet, there were those who continued to live there. Most because it was where they had always lived, many because they had no way to leave, and a few by choice.

Harry Potter was none of these.

He hadn't always lived in his sandy home to the North of Lynchwood, if he chose to he could leave the Dust, and even Pandora, behind, nor did he actively choose to come to this chaotic mess of a world.

No, the reason he stayed, was because he had nowhere else to go.

As far as he could tell, he was stuck here in this strange Universe, and he supposed he may as well make the most of it. At least here he wasn't hailed as 'The-Boy-Who-Lived,' 'The-Man-Who-Won,' and other such stupid, hyphenated monikers. And while it wasn't exactly peaceful, per se, there was an appeal to mostly being left alone to his own business. Which was mainly enchanting this and that for selling, as well as potions; the strange materials of this planet were surprisingly potent, and very effective for a good potion. He was still trying to figure out this Eridium stuff, though.

Of course, his skills were noticed from time to time. First natives, then Atlas, and then Hyperion had come after his skills. And all had received the same answer; a firm 'no' and a bullet to the head if they didn't listen. So, when he saw a war-weathered, dark-skinned man coming up the path to his home on the cliff, he had a procedure to fall back upon.

"Alright, that's far enough," he called out as he stepped through his front door, levelling a Jakobs pistol at the man. "Give me a reason for being here or bugger off."

"My name's Roland," he began slowly, eyeing the pistol and twitching his hand so as not to grab the assault rifle on his back.

"I know who you are," Harry replied with a roll of his vivid green eyes, "you sent out enough of those echo recorders. And I can make a decent guess why you're here. Wanting me to join up with the Crimson Raiders?"

"Partly, yeah," the big man admitted.

"Well, you can forget about it," he stated firmly. "Not happening. Now, who told you where I live?"

"Friend o'mine called Tina. Said you're a decent guy with some special talents," he visibly eyed Harry up and down.

"Fuck, I knew I shouldn't have told her where I lived," Harry muttered, letting the gun waver a bit.

"She's a good kid," Roland defended her, shifting his stance to be a little more relaxed, "insane, sure, but still a good kid."

"Insanity isn't exactly rare here," the wizard retorted.

"Yeah, but good people are," the ex-soldier took a step forward, but stilled as the pistol was once more trained on him.

"Ah-ah, just because Tina likes you, doesn't mean _I_ trust you. So you've delivered your invitation, now you can bugger off."

"Actually I haven't delivered my full invitation," Roland stated, "Sanctuary is a city filled with those few good people I mentioned. And they could sure as hell do with some of the miracles you put out. I'm not asking you to Join the Crimson Raiders, just to come back where it's safe and sell some of your wares. If money's all you care about, there's plenty of people there who'd be willing to buy."

"Money isn't everything to me, you know," Harry replied with a frown, "and don't try to pull the guilt-trip card on me, either. I'm not interested in moving to Sanctuary and painting a great big target on my back. Only reason I'm still alive is I keep to myself, and I intend to keep it that way."

"Last I heard, Hyperion had a bounty on your head as it is."

"Yeah, and it's a small one, and it's for alive not dead. No-one's that interested in the Witch-Doctor of the Dust, and I'm not changing that."

"Well, if you do change your mind, or maybe people do get interested, the invitation will always be open."

"Yeah, whatever, now scram!"

########################################################################

"What part of 'Bugger Off' did you not get?" Harry asked as he once more levelled a gun at Sanctuary's soldier, not even a week after their first meeting.

"The part where I got business for you," Roland replied nonchalantly. "I heard you take commissions."

"Depends on the commission."

"Well, I got a list from various people in Sanctuary," he pulled out an echo device, "and the money to pay for it." The wizard sighed, and rubbed his face with his spare hand.

"Tell me these aren't things that will come back to bite me? I'm not doing any weapons, or anything else you might use against Hyperion."

"Nope, just your normal stuff," Roland stated with a slight smile.

"Leave the list and ten thou up front."

"And then bugger off?"

"Yeah something like that."

########################################################################

The day eventually came when the Echo-comms that Roland had forced upon Harry to save on endless trips to the Dust started bleeping insistently with an emergency message.

"What is it Roland?" Harry asked as he turned it on, sitting down at the small table his kitchen offered.

"I got some new refugees today, all dying of something people call 'The Shivers,'" came the reply.

"You've got a town doctor, haven't you?"

"He's a surgeon, and not a qualified doctor. He said this was some form of neurological disease mixed with possible total organ failure." Harry stayed silent, not replying to the statement as he scratched at his short black beard in thought. "Harry, I need you to come in."

"Roland…"

"These guys are innocents, victims of Hyperion's mining efforts. They'll be dead soon without a miracle, and miracles are hard to come by on Pandora."

"Yeah, and people talk about miracles, and then word spreads."

"We can do this discretely, no-one will know you were here, and no-one will recognise you."

"Roland…" he said again, trying to come up with a decent reason not to go, but his conscience was nagging at him.

"I got ten people here who won't survive without your help; you know I wouldn't call if I didn't have any other choice."

"Fine," Harry stated after a long few moments of silence, shutting off the Echo-comms before Roland could reply. "Stupid saving people thing," he muttered as he went to gather his gear.

########################################################################

It was another month before Roland brought something up outside the usual on one of his supply requests.

"Oh, and I was wondering if you'd be able to do something outside of the normal ballpark," he'd started.

"What," Harry replied cautiously, stalling in the writing down of the list of items he'd wanted –mainly potions.

"You've been studying that Eridium stuff, right?"

"Yeah," Harry said slowly.

"I got a friend who's a siren, and she's been…absorbing the stuff."

"Absorbing," Harry stated flatly, blinking at the word.

"Yeah. It's been messing with her abilities, making them stronger, but also more erratic, and, I think she's becoming addicted to it."

"How does she even – no, never mind, what is it you want me to do?"

"I was hoping you could take a look at her; see if it's having any adverse effects or causing problems."

"Roland, you know I don't like coming to Sanctuary."

"She isn't in Sanctuary, she's in Frostburn Canyon."

"Isn't that place filled with bandits under that Firehawk guy?"

"Yeah, that's her; she's been keeping the Bloodshots busy."

"Your friend is a bandit boss?"

"From what I've heard it's more like a cult leader, really."

########################################################################

"Roland," Harry began as he called the man, "can you please tell this Tannis woman to stop messaging me? I am not going to let her 'study' me. It sounds like she wants to dissect me."

"Yeah, sorry about that. She can get a bit obsessive."

"Oh, and could you thank Hammerlock for the beer? It's been so difficult to find proper stout on this planet."

########################################################################

"Hey Vault Hunters!" Harry killed the engine of his Bandit Technical as he rolled into Ellie's Garage, carefully not making any sudden moves around the group of twitchy characters. "Heard you were looking for one of these."

"Oh, hey Harry," Ellie said in her heavy accent while waving him over as he jumped out of the large vehicle.

"Ellie, if the next thing out of your mouth is going to be a pick—up line or euphemism, don't bother. Even if it's one of your mother's. I'm still not interested," he stated lightly as he approached the group.

"Pfft, one'a these days I'll get ya. Ya can't resist charm like this forever," the mechanic replied in what she probably thought was a coquettish manner.

"Somehow, I think I'll manage. Vault Hunters, she's all yours," he gestured a hand behind him at the vehicle. "Just don't tell anyone I helped you rescue Roland, I need to keep a low profile."

"What about Roland?" the man at the front hefting an assault rifle inquired.

"Especially him."

########################################################################

He was at Tina's when the news broke. She hadn't reacted well. After persuading her to let him give her a sleeping potion, determination had filled Harry's eyes and he set out with purpose.

A son of a bitch was going to die today.

########################################################################

It took the Vault Hunters some time to reach the Vault of the Warrior; having to find out where it was, and fighting bandits and Hyperion goons to get there. When they finally did, they were in time to see the bearded man they had briefly met in the Dust walking towards them away from the fallen body of the Warrior, and a heavily bleeding Jack.

The man – Harry, a few recalled – didn't so much as flinch or look back as the CEO of Hyperion was consumed in an explosion from what looked like a grenade. He just kept on walking past them.

########################################################################

"So, you ever played Bunkers and Badasses before?" Lilith asked Harry as he set down a box in what was now the house belonging to him and Tina in Sanctuary – she had managed to persuade him with some puppy dog eyes, and the fact he was no-longer scared of hiding himself.

"No," he admitted while dusting off his hands, "but it sounds like fun, and Tina's pretty excited for it."

"Tina's always excited for everything."

"Not so much after… well, you know," he was reluctant to bring up Roland's death with his girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend now.

"It hit us all hard; some more than others," Lilith said softly. "Still, I guess he was right about you in the end."

"What?" Harry asked, turning around to face the Siren in confusion.

"He was sure he'd make a hero of you one day," she responded with a slight, sad smile tugging at her lips. "He always said you were a good man who'd just lost his motivation. He was trying to draw you out of your shell, little by little."

"Of course he was; I did wonder sometimes; the requests slowly getting bigger and with more guilt-tripping," Harry admitted, "I just wish it hadn't taken…" He trailed off, staring into the box's contents, and seeing a framed photo of the man hefting a laughing Tina on his shoulder.

"I'll see you later," Lilith said after a moment, "don't come too late, or we'll drink all of Hammerlock's beer without you."

"I'll see you there," he distractedly replied, rubbing his forehead with its old, faded scar as his mind wandered. He'd stayed out of things too much, been too far away. How much could he have done if he hadn't?

In his mind's eye, he was dragged back to long ago in his childhood when he had caught part of a film Dudley had been watching about a Superhero. ' _With great power comes great responsibility_.'

He hadn't been responsible at all.

"Thanks, Roland," he murmured as he closed up the box with the photo in. "For reminding me who I am."

Straightening up, he turned to make for the door while a smile made its way across his face. He had a game to play, and beer to drink in memory of a friend.

 **A/N: I'm fond of the Borderlands games, and I recently replayed Tales from the Borderlands and started a new Borderlands 2 campaign as Gaige, who I'm actually really enjoying playing (Anarchy in the UK!) This came as I've seen many reluctant Harrys forced into the wrong Universe (often Marvel) but I don't think anyone's done Borderlands before.**

 **Also, badasses don't look at explosions.**

Prompt Four : Let's Play a Game (Werewolf/Town of Salem)

"It's Hermione, it's got to be Hermione," Ron insisted as he pointed at the bushy haired woman.

"It's obviously not her; she's the witch," his sister replied with a roll of her eyes. "I'm more inclined to think it's you."

"It's not me, I'm the Healer," Ron protested, "Susan investigated me, remember?"

"Hang on; I'm the Healer!" Fred stated, or maybe it as George.

"I thought I was Healer," the other twin replied.

"No, you're the Jester, I'm the Healer."

"I thought I was the Healer and you were the Jester."

"Can I bring up two things?" Luna inquired. "Firstly, can we take notice that Hermione is still muted and unable to defend herself, which is a tad suspect." The bushy haired woman nodded fervently and thankfully in the blonde's direction. "Secondly, I believe Susan's will said that Ronald was the Healer _or_ the SK."

"Yes, and I'm the Healer," Ron replied.

"We only have your word of that," Ginny stated. "All in favour of lynching Ron?"

"What, oh come on!" the redhead protested to the show of raised hands – including an irately silent Hermione.

"You have voted in favour of killing Ron," a voice declared from behind them. "You have chosen…poorly. Ron; reveal your role."

"Healer, like I said," the angry boy stated as he flipped over his card for all to see.

"Ron, move to the graveyard," Harry continued in his ominous voice, pointing over to the silenced bubble in the Room of Requirement where the dead now sat. "Now, the town shall sleep."

########################################################################

"I still say that was the most bullshit win ever," George harrumphed, "how did you know which of us was Jester and which was Godfather?"

"The way you reacted when I called your roles," Hermione replied smugly as she and Luna split the box of Honeyduke's between them. "And I knew Luna was the Serial Killer, of course, so I helped her out."

"This is a stupid game," Ron grumbled as he watched the chocolate that he would never eat changing hands.

"It was just a bit of fun," Harry said as he finally sat down, "it's Halloween, and I thought we could use some downtime, and bringing the DA back together for a game sounded like a good idea."

"I thought it was fun," Neville spoke up.

"Yeah, muggles have some good ideas for things to do without magic," Padma admitted.

"There's way more where that came from," Colin said with a sly smile, "we could always try Cards Against Humanity."

"I think that would be a bad idea Colin," Hermione replied, "Wizarding sensibilities and all."

"What do you mean?" Ron asked confusedly, "what's Cards Against Humanity?"

"I'll tell you when you're older."

 **A/N: And I think it's obvious that this came from me playing some Town of Salem. Fun game, though I swear I always get the absolute dumbest townies when I don't want them, and then when I do, they can actually work out that I'm a bad guy.**

 **Anyway, there's some prompts and generally some writing to get me going after a three month stop. It only took me a few weeks…**

 **With this should be coming a slight rearrangement of my Plot Bunny Pastures stuff. And, since I'm writing this AN on the 30** **th** **of July, it looks like I'm not going to be keeping my promise, annoyingly. I'm sorry, I've just been snowed under far more than I expected by things like finding accommodation, sorting out things I'll be bringing with me and UCAS stuff as well as other real life issues that have contributed to this being less of a holiday. So yeah, I'm sorry; CMM chapter will still be coming at some point, I just can't say when.**


	4. A Setup

**A/N: More of an idea for a story beginning than anything else, as I have no idea where this one would lead; whether to an independent Harry, or aristocratic, maybe a better adjusted Dudley, or a Harry-gets-a-gun/military style thing. Free to be adopted, if anyone has any ideas.**

 **Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING, property of respective owners etc.**

A Setup

Harry was scrubbing dishes in the sink when the doorbell rang, and he spared a glance upwards from his yellow-gloved hands to see his aunt moving to answer the door before turning back to the washing-up. Probably just Jehovah's Witnesses or the like, they seemed to like visiting this neighbourhood regardless of how annoyed Uncle Vernon became at them.

Still, curiosity won out for the ten-year-old, and he turned slightly while still miming scrubbing plates to look down the hall to where his Aunt was opening the door. Beyond stood a man in a dark suit with a briefcase in hand, and who immediately pulled off his hat and held it to his chest upon the door opening.

"Would you be Petunia Dursley?" he inquired in a sombre tone.

"Yes," the horse-faced woman replied tersely, "what of it?"

"My name is Mister Wilkes, I've come to speak about your father," the man stated. Harry frowned at that; he'd never heard mention of any extended family on his aunt's side, and that would make this about his own grandfather.

"I thought we'd made it quite clear in our letters; we're not interested in supporting any charities, or donating to the home," his aunt spat, grabbing the doorframe in preparation to close it.

"You misunderstand, Mrs Dursley, I'm afraid I am apparently the bearer of bad news," he shuffled awkwardly. "Would you mind if I came in? This is hardly a discussion to be had on a doorstep."

"You will tell me why you are here, or you can leave our property," she said firmly.

"Mrs Dursley, I am here as the executor of his estate." Those words, whatever they meant, were apparently enough to get Petunia to open the door and stand out of the way after a few seconds, letting the man enter their home. As the pair moved to the sitting room, Harry's curiosity overcame him and he abandoned his gloves and washing-up to move behind the door to the room, where Wilkes was seen just sitting down awkwardly on a sofa. Carefully, he situated himself so he could hear but not be seen through the open door.

"When…?" his aunt sounded slightly subdued, which was strange for her, the question trailing off.

"Three days ago; I did not think I would be the one to tell you this, I had thought they would have informed you," Wilkes replied. "The nurses said he was very peaceful near the end, and it had been a long time coming."

"Of course. If not to inform us, why is it you came, then?"

"Ah, yes," there was the snap of a briefcase opening and a rustling of papers, "you are of course, John's next of kin, as his oldest daughter, and I normally coordinate funeral dates and will-readings with close family. However, there is also the matter of your sister and nephew." A sharp, feminine intake of breath was audible.

"What of them?" Petunia asked tightly.

"Well, the last information I have shows your sister giving birth to a boy – one Harry James Potter, apparently – in Dorset County Hospital, and then dropping off the radar so to speak; I could find no named address or contact number. They are both named beneficiaries, and I was hoping you might be able to help me track them down?"

"That's me," Harry let out without really thinking about it, stepping into the doorway to his Aunt's obvious annoyance. "I'm Harry Potter."

############################################################################

Harry fidgeted as he sat on his chair between Dudley and an old man in some form of military uniform. He was not at all accustomed to wearing the smart, black suit and tie that his uncle had – grudgingly – rented for him at the same time as buying Dudley a new one.

The funeral had been a sombre affair, and one of very few times Harry had seen Dudley get harshly scolded after he held a tantrum in the middle of the service. He had felt rather strange throughout; as he had ever since he found out about the grandfather he had never met. From what he had gathered, he had some form of illness that confined him to a home of some description. He was also sad for not having met him, as all of those who spoke about him had many good things to say.

Once the funeral had ended, Petunia had not wanted to stick around long and had them bundled into a car and driven to here – where they waited for several other persons who were present at the funeral to arrive. There weren't many; Mister Wilkes, the man who had come to their house of course sat at a desk in the centre of the room, the military man next to Harry, a shrew-faced woman and her husband sitting opposite, and of course Harry and his family.

"Ah, Mr and Mrs Wiggins, I presume?" Wilkes greeted as another older man in uniform entered with a woman on his arm. They were quickly directed to the remaining two seats, and the lawyer stopped fiddling with his papers and stood up. "Now that we are all gathered, I believe it is time to begin. Ah—hem:

 _This is the last will and testament of Major General, Sir John Patrick Evans, KCB, DSO. Being of sound mind, yet unsound of body, this is dictated orally to Head Nurse Bradshaw of the Dorset Veteran's Home at which I currently reside on this, the 18_ _th_ _of December, 1980._

 _I hereby cancel all previous wills of every nature and kind whatsoever._

 _I appoint Matthew Wilkes to look after my estate, and name him as Executor of this will. I grant him full authority to deal with my debts, funeral and testamentary expenses._

 _With legal jargon out of the way, I may now move to my legacy as I'm sure you are all waiting upon. And herein lies my torment; my wife has long since passed on, as have most of my friends and family. Of my two daughters, one refuses to speak to me as I disapprove of her husband, the other in some vague effort to 'keep me safe'. Regardless, if you are there to hear this; Petunia, Lily, know that I always have and always will love you."_

Wilkes paused briefly, looking up at the aforementioned woman who did not visibly react to the statements. Quickly looking away, the man took a sip from a glass of water before continuing.

" _To my eldest child, Petunia, I leave the estate in Provence and the contents of the boathouse there, in the hope that you might rediscover some of the joy you once felt running through the vineyards or sailing in the Sound._

 _To my dearest Lily, I leave Galcott Manor, in the hope that its strong walls grant you safety from whatever it is you require protection from. Please, come home my little flower."_

Harry could swear he caught a mumbled "Favoured child," from two seats over where his aunt was sitting.

" _To my grandchildren; Dudley and Harry, as well as any others that may have been born in the time since this has been written, I leave fifty thousand pounds each, to be held in trust, and used to pay for their schooling at a suitable location and any remainder received when they turn eighteen."_

Both boys blinked at that; fifty thousand pounds was no small amount of money. And for Harry, it meant the possibility of not attending Stonewall Comprehensive – with Piers Polkiss and all those others members of Dudley's gang – and maybe going to a better school.

" _To my step-brother, Christopher, if you're still around, I leave the Rolls. If you intend to keep her, then use her well and look after her. If you do not, find her a good home, please._

 _To his wife, Lavinia, I leave a receipt for the silverware you stole over the years – don't think I didn't notice. Quite why my brother married you, I still have no idea."_

That wrung an indignant harrumph from the shrew-like woman, and a resigned and tired look from the man next to her.

" _To Albert Wiggins, my batman and a finer man I have never known, I leave the house on the Galcott estate your family has long lived in but always refused to formally buy, and the position of steward over the estate. Your family has looked after mine for generations, I beg that you continue to do so; it sounds like my Lily-flower could use a hand._

 _To James Bowden, if you yet live; well bugger, looks like I lost, old friend. I leave to you that admission of your superiority, the bottle of 1928 Cognac in the bottom drawer of my desk, and the responsibility of keeping Blighty safe in the absence of an Evans to do the job properly."_

That wrought a snort of amusement from the final man in the room, who gave a grim smile and nodded to himself.

" _And so, I sign off for the last time. Still, those who know me will know my opinion; 'The last enemy to be defeated is death.'_

 _Signed John Evans, witnessed by Patrick Wight and Sally Jones."_

############################################################################

As the group – Harry would hesitate to call them a family – was leaving the building, they were held up by Mr Wiggins, who made a request of his aunt.

"It just isn't right, Mrs Dursley, for that building to sit empty without an Evans in it. The whole village is lacking for it. We've kept it well maintained, and it's a fine place to bring up a pair of young gentlemen," he gestured at Harry and Dudley, "fresh air, a stable of horses and wide open space to play in."

"We shall consider it," Petunia replied simply, turning to leave while shooting a glance at her husband.

############################################################################

"And this is the study," Mr Wiggins – who insisted on being called Albert – stated as he gestured through the door just off the fully stocked library. Harry moved into the room in wonder – still in awe that the whole place technically belonged to him!

The space was tastefully refined, with a large mahogany desk with a green leather seat behind it, more bookshelves, a pair of sofas by an ornate fireplace with the traditional deer head above, and a ticking grandfather clock by the door. Also dotted on the wall were a few weapons, and some shadow-boxes containing medals. Catching him staring at them, Albert walked over to a specific one and pointed inside.

"These were your grandfather's," he said, with a hint of nostalgia, "he rose to a two star rank in a long career; it was a tragedy that he was stopped before he could rise higher. Those up there," he then pointed at another box, "were your great grandfather's, and next to him is his brother's, and over there is your grandmother's George Medal for civilian service. And there's more, going back a very long time on all sides of your family. You come from a long and distinguished line of fine military service, Master Harry."

"Makes me feel so small," the child replied, staring around at the physical representations of history. That wrought an amused chortle from the old man.

"Your mother said the same thing."

 **A/N: And there we go. Like I said, more of a beginning than anything else, but I always liked the idea that the Evans as having a military history. Probably since in most Harry-gets-a-gun stories he finds a pistol that belonged to his grandfather in the attic or something. And most likely due to my own family's military history.**

 **Also, with Lily giving birth in a muggle hospital - I thought that would make sense since she might have been informed of the prophecy before Harry's birth, and it was the middle of a war where she was an undesirable, so going to a muggle place rather than Saint Mungo's would make sense as no Death Eater would look there.**


	5. Gird Your Armour On

**A/N: An odd thought for a crossover, mayhap, which came to me on the bus to work and refused to leave me alone – I've had the battle song stuck in my head for days now. NOTE: This is inspired by the Classic, charming comedies of St Trinian's films, and by Ronald Searle's cartoons, not the chick-flick remakes from the last decade or so. Regardless, herein is a glimpse at some bits of chaos potentially caused by a St Trinian's style attendee at old Hogwarts. God knows if it'll actually be any good, but here goes –might be a bit rough as it was mainly written on the aforementioned bus, while waiting for meetings to begin at work and while trying to install Windows 7 on my new laptop (which came with a pre-installed 30-day trial of Windows 10 and is proving a bitch to reformat because I messed up the original install…).**

 **Disclaimer: I OWN NOTHING, ALL PROPERTIES REFERENCED BELONG TO THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS**

Gird Your Armour On

"What in the blazes are we going to do with her, though? She'll grow up just like her parents, mark my words," Vernon's face was red as he paced the front room, glaring at the tiny child in a basket by his wife. Said woman was currently wracking her brains to think of just that; desperate for some solution, any solution which didn't involve any more contact with those wretched wizards... "She'll be a delinquent hooligan all through childhood, and a scab on the face of society as she gets older!"

"Yes, of course she will," Petunia agreed absently, before stilling as her brain clicked as to a solution to their woes. Mrs Willis (who lived down in number 10, and currently had some awfully wilted roses that Number 6 was tittering with Petunia about yesterday), she had a niece in London that was an absolute nightmare - antisocial, loud, disobedient - that got kicked out of numerous _decent_ schools. Her parents had eventually decided to ship her off to some boarding school in the country renowned for that sort of thing. Since then, they had not heard a peep from her - according to Mrs Willis after two months without a call from the headmistress they went on holiday in celebration. "Vernon, dear, I might just have an idea..."

#######################################################################

Camilla Fritton considered herself a shrewd woman - one had to be with a school of girls like hers, playful as they were - so naturally, upon the sight at her doorstep, she lit up a cigarette and considered the child. The girl, for her part, stared up with bright green eyes, maintaining eye contact unflinchingly, and not making the slightest noise of discomfort despite the cold November air outside. Undaunted, clearly, and a good sign of character and resilience for future life.

She could make a guess as to why she was here, of course; one of her girls, or ex-girls, had been less than careful in some respect or another - maybe by getting knocked up in the first place, or perhaps needing to go on the run from the police and hide a child in the meantime - and wanted to leave the girl in her care. Naturally they trusted her as one of the few intelligent adults in this all too short-sighted world. After a few more moments' consideration, she stubbed out the fag and picked up the child.

"You'll make a Trinian's girl, that's for sure," she stated calmly, kicking the door closed behind her with a slam. "I'll wait for two weeks for your mother to show her face, after that you'll need to impress me if you expect to stay, little one."

The child gurgled in response.

#######################################################################

"Cor, you don' 'alf look funny," the girl stated succinctly, staring upwards past the battered and frayed straw hat upon her head. Minerva McGonagall bristled at the implied insult, irritated that this was the better reaction of the pair sitting on the sign by the school driveway - the other having started pointing and laughing so hard upon sighting her that the young child fell over backwards. What was so amusing about her appearance? The kilt in her family colours had been worn by Scots for generations, and she had been assured the uncomfortable tweed jacket and red blouse were the height of high society fashion. She'd been so sure of getting the muggle appearance right this year. Maybe it was time to give in and ask a muggleborn student for help? "What'chu doin' 'ere, den?" The brat of poor diction snapped her from reverie, and Minerva couldn't help her lips thinning at the butchering of English.

"I am here for Harry Potter," she enunced clearly, as if to batter some decent language around the girl's ears - she must have been at least twelve, surely the muggles hadn't regressed so far as to have such illiterate children once again? The parchment letter weighed heavily in her pocket, addressed to _'Harriet Potter, 6th Year Dorm, St Trinian's School for Girls, Oxfordshire_.' According to the book of names, the girl had received a letter but had still not replied - a most odd occurrence. Minerva had managed to persuade Professor Dumbledore to send her instead of Hagrid, given that it was a girl's school she resided in currently, and a man like Hagrid would stand out like the sorest of thumbs.

"Well why didn' you say so," the girl drawled, hopping off the sign with a hockey stick slung over her shoulder. "C'mon, 'e's in the garage." As she moved, the visiting teacher noticed that the sign she had rested on was defaced with the words 'Beware hope all ye who enter here' in blood red paint. A shiver ran down her spine that had nothing to do with the traditional English weather. Indeed, said feelings only compounded when she took in the sight of the old school building that had likely seen better days, and the burnt-out husk of blackened walls nearby.

"What happened there?" she inquired, pointing at the blatant fire damage.

"Oh, Annabelle burned down the gym last term," the child answered nonchalantly - as if such an event were an everyday occurrence!

"By Merlin, was she a student?"

"'Course. Still is f'that matter."

"She wasn't expelled?" McGonagall asked, aghast at the lack of discipline.

"Yeah, but she came back." As the Scot stood stumped at the idea of allowing an arsonist back into a school, they had fortunately reached a garage just off the driveway, and the girl pushed up the bottom of the roller door - needing to push it all the way with her hockey stick in order to reach. "Oi Flash, you in 'ere?"

"Viv, is that you?" came the reply of a man with a cockney accent from with its darkened depths. "I need to talk to you about that last batch; bloke from York said he went blind from it, and they're bannin' it. We'll need to relabel again." A shady looking man walked up to the entrance from within the garage, dressed in a long overcoat with a fedora atop his head, carrying what looked like a bottle of alcohol. "Who's the broad?"

"Said she was lookin' f'you; asked for Harry Potter," the newly identified 'Viv' replied.

"That ain't my name," the man stated with a frown.

"I thought it must'a been one'a your names you use with them girls you pick up down the bookies for a shag."

Minerva's response about this being the wrong Harry died in her throat with a splutter of surprise.

"You thought I'da slept with her?"

"I thought your standards must'a dropped."

"Well they 'aven't," he turned to address her, "'an if you ain't after me, then who are you after?"

"I, ah," the woman struggled for words as she stood flabbergasted by the blatant discussion of the man's sexual exploits - and the suggestion she herself was one - directly in front of her, and with a small child no less!

"And why're you dressed so funny?"

"Harriet," McGonagall managed to finally say, "Harry is short for Harriet."

"'Arriet Potter?" 'Viv' spoke up, "no girl called that 'ere."

"I believe she may have been adopted, so she could have changed her surname."

"Could be Harry Green," the man pondered, "hey Viv, when you see her, do us a favour and tell her we need to get the methanol content down, eh? Can't keep having these problems."

"Got it, Flash," the girl replied with a sloppy salute, and turned to walk away. Somewhat bewildered, the witch quickly followed after a few seconds for realisation to dawn. The journey into the main school building was much quieter, as McGonagall contemplated just what environment James and Lily's little girl was in and what in Merlin's name kind of school was this? Eventually, the pair reached a door labelled 'Chemistry Classroom.' Upon entering they were immediately greeted with a huge puff of white smoke.

"Now come on, I know you can produce better results than this!" Finally, the voice of a teacher within this place. "If this were nitro-glycerine, it would already have exploded! Now, outline where in the process you went wrong." Or not.

Entering the room was like being inside a dream and a nightmare all at once for a potioneer; glassware everywhere producing unknown things, girls busying themselves around with goggles upon their faces and smiles on their lips, however at the same time said faces were smudged with soot, the vague puffs of smoke from everywhere, and the haphazard nature of the equipment layout would give any control freak - as most potioneers were - an aneurysm. Of course, the teacher in charge hardly bettered that assessment by not only failing to notice the new entrants into the crowded room, but also smoking a cigarette in a place filled with volatile materials. And Minerva had been so sure her opinion of this 'school' could sink no lower!

"Oi, 'Arry," the call from her guide snapped her gaze to a raven-haired girl by what looked like a tall glass pipe, and her heart leapt at finally finding the Girl-Who-Lived. Said hope was dashed as the girl nudged one next to her with straw-coloured hair standing on end from some previous explosion, and soot around her goggles.

"What?" the girl demanded, pulling off her goggles.

"Flash says we gotta get the methanol down, some bloke went blind, an' we need to relabel again."

"I thought we did," the blonde replied with a pout, "we halved the methanol. Who's the weirdo in a kilt?"

"Some woman after 'Arriet Potter. You're adopted, ain't you?"

"Yeah, but Green's my birth name; I've ain't never been a Potter," the girl looked the older witch up and down, distaste in her eyes. "And I've never seen her in my life."

"I can confirm she looks absolutely nothing like Harry Potter does," Minerva stated, wafting a hand by her face to dismiss a chemical cloud.

"Look, you sure she's 'ere? There ain't any other 'Arry's or 'Arriet's 'ere," the tiny girl looked fairly comical with hands on her hips, staring up from underneath a tatty hat with annoyance.

"Quite certain; she should be a young girl about your age; black hair, green eyes and with a lightning bolt scar upon her forehead," the witch stated with exasperation - the Hogwarts system was never wrong, that it would be questioned even unknowingly was an insult she did not like.

"For gawd's sake, lead with that one next time," the girl replied, stomping off with the older woman dutifully following. The path they took was up several flights of stairs, until they stood before a door reading 'Sixth Form Dormitory.' ' _Finally, the same place as on the letter!_ ' Minerva thought to herself in relief. A rapping on the door brought a figure to the fore that evaporated that relief and made the old school marm's eyes bulge out.

"Oh, hello Vivian," the young woman at the door greeted, though McGonagall's attention was more on the scandalous 'uniform' that had a skirt barely reaching halfway down the thighs - clearly showing suspender tops - and an unbuttoned blouse that gave a glimpse of a lacy bra. To said chest was clasped a brace of playing cards, held behind crimson painted nails. Just what kind of establishment was this? "Who's the one with no fashion sense?"

"She's 'ere lookin' for Jules. You seen 'er?" the first-year replied.

"So who is she? And why is she looking for her?" the other girl replied suspiciously - and how did it feel that the most well-spoken person, and the only one to actually question her presence before allowing her inside the school was a slattern of a student, rather than one of the teachers or even her erstwhile young guide, who should probably be in classes thinking about it.

"My name is Minerva McGonagall; I am deputy headmistress at a very exclusive private school that has offered her a chance to attend," she puffed herself up a bit as she said this; such an opportunity was a serious event after all.

"Wait; is this about that weird letter from the other week? We thought that was a joke."

"A joke?" came the spluttered reply, "Hogwarts is the most prestigious school of - wait, _you_ read the letter?"

"Mary read some of it out - it wasn't like we knew who it was addressed to anyway. We got halfway through and threw it away; sounded like a load of nonsense to me." The witch tried not to bristle too much as her lip thinned at that comment.

"Regardless," she replied through gritted teeth, "I would appreciate the chance to speak to her in person."

"I guess there's no harm; she went down to the music room about quarter of an hour ago."

"Thank-you," McGonagall turned on the spot to look pointedly at her guide. The conversation over with, the sixth year slammed the door closed in their faces.

"Alright, Full House; pay up girls!" could just be heard from beyond the door. The idea of students gambling didn't even shock the professor at this point, though she noted yet another mark against this place's reputation in her mind. The trudge back down several flights of stairs was filled with ponderings on what kind of guardian would send their child here? She had known the Dursleys were bad, but this? She would be having a serious conversation with Albus once she returned.

As they neared their destination, the plinking sounds of a piano being played in time with a drum could be heard. The following wave of sound as the singing began far outdid that, of course - her guide joining them emphatically as they walked:

 _'Maidens of St Trinian's, gird your armour on,_

 _Grab the nearest weapon, never mind which one._

 _Battle's to the strongest, might is always right,_

 _Trample on the weakest, glory in their plight._

 _St Trinian's, St Trinian's; our battle cry._

 _St Trinian's, St Trinian's shall Never die!_ '

 _'What awful, awful lyrics. Not even in Slytherin..._ ' flitted through her head as they walked into the room containing the culprits; a band of third or fourth years lined up and yelling their lungs out. At the front of the room, one of their fellows gaily slammed a mallet into a drum as tall as herself next to a piano with a few boxes serving as a stool for the tiny little girl with flowing raven hair to slam down her fingers on the ivory keys. During all of this by either some herculean effort, or some minor miracle, the teacher for the class was slumped face down on her desk with an empty bottle grasped in hand. _'Disgraceful behaviour as a standard, but in front of students as well!'_ Of course, no-one noticed their entrance in the cacophony of noise, and what was presumably the school song continued – though it sounded more like a battle hymn of sorts.

 _'Stride towards your fortune, boldly on your way,_

 _Never once forgetting, there's one born every day._

 _Let our motto be broadcast: get your blow in first!_

 _She who draws the sword last, always comes off worst._

 _St Trinian's, St Trinian's our battle cry._

 _St Trinian's, St Trinian's shall NEVER die!_ '

The song blessedly over, the girls fell into giggling groups. In this moment, her guide and herself managed to make their way to the front of the classroom.

"'Ey Jules; some woman 'ere to see you."

The girl who turned around wasn't quite dressed like the others; instead of the dress-like garment that went over everyone else's shirt, she wore no hat, a simpler skirt and unmarked white blouse, and with tights instead of the under-knee socks favoured by the other younger girls. The face, however, was all too familiar. Staring out from a voluminous mess of raven-black locks - definitely Potter hair - was the heart-shaped face of an old friend, complete with piercing green eyes. The only thing that separated her from a first-year Lily Evans were the obvious change in hair colour, a pair of rectangular glasses falling halfway down her nose, and the infamous lightning bolt upon her forehead.

"Did she come for a fashion consultation?" the girl - definitely Harry this time - quipped, and wasn't it a relief to hear clear diction from her. "I'm not sure there's much help that can be given to this kind of mess."

"No, Harry, I'm here to talk to you about your schooling," McGonagall replied. "And to give you this letter." Reverently, she proffered the parchment envelope with green lettering that had been weight so heavily in her pocket.

"Firstly, I already know where I'm going to school, and it certainly isn't some crackpot school of circus tricks. Secondly, it's really bloody creepy you knew which room I spend most my time in," the girl stated with derision. "Thirdly, that ain't even my name."

"Juliet!" came a commanding voice before Minerva could explain herself, "what have I told you about your language." Striding through the sea of students, and parting them as if the Red Sea came a commanding figure of a woman - if Minerva used the word 'woman' in its loosest sense. Despite the frilly dress, what was most likely a ginger wig atop her head and a good deal of makeup, she looked rather like a man performing a drag act. And what was this about 'Juliet?'

"Sorry mother," the girl acquiesced - confirming her name as something other than Harriet Potter.

"Don't apologise; correct yourself." With an elaborate sigh, the tiny ravenette turned to the witch once again.

"That isn't even my name," she said in a monotone voice. Minerva frowned as she realised she wasn't correcting her cursing, and was half-tempted to point it out.

"That is still using a contraction suitable for casual conversation; this is clearly formal as you have not even been introduced yet," the woman went on to correct.

"That is not even my name, then," the girl said in annoyance, "why do you force me to do this? You don't even start to teach diction until year eleven, and you don't nag the sixth form half as much as you do me."

"I raised you to be a lady, and have high expectations of you. I warned you on the day we met that I expected you to impress me," lesson given, the woman turned to her. "Now, I would like to know why someone is marching around my school, interrupting lessons and now seeking out my daughter?"

"Your school?" McGonagall couldn't help but reply; so this was the one responsible for this hellhole. And now that it caught up to her; what did she mean daughter? And Harry had called her mother for that matter. What happened to the Dursleys?

"Yes, _my_ school," the woman straightened up, "I'm Amelia Fritton, the Headmistress. And you are?"

"Professor Minerva McGonagall, deputy Headmistress of Hogwarts school," she replied.

"Professor? From what university did you receive that accolade? I don't believe I've ever heard of a Hogwarts in the education system," the woman replied with a slight catty smirk pulling at her lips.

"I believe this conversation is best relegated to a private setting, Mrs Fritton," she deflected instead.

"Ms. Fritton, thank-you, I am not married. I suppose we can use my office - thank-you Vivian for escorting our guest everywhere. Come along Juliet." With such said, the odd woman turned to leave the room - swiftly followed by 'Juliet'.

The office, as it turned out, was just around the corner - a room filled with wall-to-wall with bookshelves, a fireplace with sofas in front, and with a heavy desk front and centre behind which Ms Fritton sat, and upon which her daughter alighted, crossing her legs and ignoring the seats clustered before it. If the headmistress minded, she certainly didn't show it. Minerva instead chose to sit in the hard-backed wooden chair, and prepared to rattle off the normal muggleborn speech - as something had clearly gone wrong, and the girl had been raised muggle. Let it never be said she was not adaptable.

"Miss Potter; I am here to discuss your offer of a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry; the finest institution of magical learning globally, where your parents attended and later set down provision for you to do the same," she began, pulling out the letter once more.

"Look; my name is Juliet Fritton," the girl said clearly, crossing her arms in an annoyed huff, "my mother is right behind me, and I am not interested in wasting my formative years learning magic tricks."

"Well spoken," her 'mother' added. "Further, she is already enrolled to study here, at the finest school for girls in these British Isles." Minerva could not quite resist the urge to snort at that proclamation. "Do you find something about that amusing?"

"Amusing, perhaps not, but as an educator I find all I have seen here appalling and hardly worthy of such a title." Ever the Gryffindor, the witch couldn't help but leap in with both feet. "Your children are unruly; dressing scandalously, gambling in their dorm and brewing alcohol and explosives in lessons! And further, the teachers I have seen either encouraged the latter, sold the former or was passed out drunk on their desk! That you would call this a place of learning..." Both the other females' faces were set in hard, disapproving stone from her rant.

"In other schools," the headmistress began after several moments in a cool, dangerous voice, "girls are sent out quite unprepared into a merciless world, but when our girls leave here, it is the merciless world which has to be prepared for them. Now I believe you have outstayed your welcome, madam." With a sigh, McGonagall pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose.

"Apologies; I believe we may have gotten off on the wrong foot. Further, you are still labouring under the misconception that I am a trickster or a con-artist," she tried.

"Actually looking at your clothing, I'm starting to believe you escaped the looney bin."

"Juliet."

"Urgh; 'Asylum for the unfortunately deranged.'"

Rather than continue to allow herself to be insulted - not for the first time today - Minerva instead flicked her sleeve out to produce her wand, and swiftly turned the desk the girl was seated upon into a pig. The undignified squeal she gave while falling to the floor definitely didn't bring a spark of satisfaction to the transfiguration mistress, definitely not.

"What the hell!" the ravenette exclaimed, staring up at the porky beast which proceeded to oink at her.

"Yes, well," the Headmistress seemed lost, simply staring at the swine with bits of paper and pens falling off its hairy back. With another swish, the desk returned to its previous state.

"I presume that I have your more serious attention, now?" Minerva stated.

#######################################################################

"Miss Fritton, I really must insist on accompanying you to Diagon Alley to purchase your school-things," Minerva said as she stood from her chair.

"I haven't yet decided whether or not I will attend, Professor," the girl in question replied, a decidedly pensive look upon her face.

"If we require your assistance, we shall of course contact you," her mother added.

"As you wish. We will expect your owl no later than July the 31st, do recall, and I do hope to be hearing from you." With that departing statement, the witch turned on the spot with a loud crack and disappeared - making the other two occupants of the room jump.

"Well, that was something," Juliet began.

"Quite."

"I think we need a second opinion, though."

"Indeed, though how to source one is a good question."

"Put out the word on the Old Girl network for anyone that recognises the word 'muggle.'"

"Yes, that should work."

#######################################################################

"That's your main wand sorted," Cassius Fletcher said as the trio walked out of Ollivander's - consisting of said man, his brother Mundungus and Juliet, who was twirling her new stick of holly. It hadn't taken too long for one of the current Trinian's girls' parents to be a squib, who also had a handy wizard brother who specialised in the shadier side of things.

"But it'll have the trace on it," Mundungus completed, "we can take a trip down Moribund's to get a backup without it. Always handy to have a spare wand, anyway."

"Brilliant," the slip of a girl whispered.

"We can probably get most of your gear down Knockturn, actually," the grimy man continued, "we can get a good deal on potions ingredients at Jigger's, and get your books used at Greta's place. Might pick up a few other things too." Juliet's only response was a cackle and a rubbing of her hands.

#######################################################################

The whole hall went silent as 'Potter, Harriet' was announced. The whispering only began as nobody stepped forwards to the stool with its singing hat.

"Oh, apologies Miss Fritton - the list is automatically written with the names upon people's letters and I hadn't thought to correct it. Could you please come up here?" On McGonagall's words, all eyes in the hall snapped to the tiny little girl with black hair going halfway down her back as she stepped up to the fore. The whispering began anew about her comment - certainly no-one knew the name Fritton, barring two girls on snake's table who sent each other looks, but said nothing, and one redheaded boy whose jaw dropped sitting a ways away from a bushy-haired girl and a pudgy boy, who immediately started talking quietly over the table of red and gold.

It was many tense moments before the decision was made.

"SLYTHERIN!"

#######################################################################

Juliet could feel the entire house's eyes on her as the Slytherins crowded into the common room, frowns and anger intermixed with confusion and deliberately blank faces - she made note of each, mostly marking the latter into the more intelligent category.

"What are you doing here, Potter?" one of the larger, hulking boys from the upper years eventually demanded as he stepped forward. The ravenette had to resist saying something about his absolutely horrific teeth that showed when he opened his mouth - did Wizardkind not have dentists?

"The hat decided I belonged here, I thought that was obvious. And my name is Fritton. Juliet Lavinia Eleanor Fritton. Mother is an avid Shakespeare enthusiast," she replied in an innocent tone, clasping her hands sweetly behind her back where - incidentally - no-one could see what they were doing, given that she was backed against a wall with a ring of students around her. The boy, and many others, sneered at that proclamation.

"You'd choose a filthy muggle name over your ancestral right?" he said in disgust.

"We don't choose our names; they get thrust upon us. Like the whole 'Girl-Who-Lived' thing," she stated with an angelic smile.

"That _'thing'_ is why you don't belong here," the boy emphasised - for despite his age best categorised as young adult, he was most definitely still a boy. With a sneer upon his face, he raised his wand up to point at her - swiftly followed by several others in the crowd. "And if you don't understand that, then we're just gonna have to teach you."

"I'm always up for learning new things," Juliet replied with a wide, toothy grin. "And you know they say the teacher often ends up learning from the student in equal measure."

The boy made to reply, even getting so far as opening his mouth before the hockey stick he didn't see coming smashed into it with a satisfying 'thwack.' Then again, he could hardly have seen it coming from the hidden, space expanded holster on her left wrist - magic really was ever so useful. Of course, it did have its problems, Juliet considered as she laid into the group intent on waylaying her. Primarily it was mostly considered a ranged weapon - as far as wands were concerned - so its users were ill-acquainted with close quarters and melee combat. Secondly, as a ranged weapon, a small, agile target amongst a large crowd of aggressors definitely had the advantage if they were at all skilled at evasion - and Juliet had spent ten years in the halls of St Trinian's school. She was significantly helped by various little purchases from her magical shopping trip - Zonko's was a very handy store, as were many places that sold questionable items she couldn't wait to use down Knockturn Alley.

Idly, as a shin-bone audibly cracked from her assault on it, she wondered how she was going to stay in shape if this sorry lot were the best adversaries the school had to offer. They couldn't even aim right. Then again, the effects of some of the spells she ducked to let hit her opponents, or pushed them into were fairly effective. When finally her wand was flicked out of her other holster, it was used to disarm the original boy who had sat up from the floor and aimed at her. With her ever present grin, she waltzed up to him slowly and deliberately and socked him around the head with her - now slightly splintered - hockey stick. Hard. He went out like a light. The girl made a mental note of how featherweight charms really affected the amount of power you could put into a swing.

"So," she said conversationally as she strolled through the groaning crowd of the fallen - about a dozen and a half miscreants that had drawn a wand and been close, the rest having backed off as she started, even now standing in the crowd with wands drawn, but not pointed. Seems they did have some intelligence after all - or maybe just a sense of self-preservation. "Is the lesson learned?" Nobody said a word. "Good! If anyone wants a refresher, just come see me. Any time."

"You think you'll get away with this, Potter?" the reply came from a girl struggling to sit up as her shin visibly bled into her robes, and some foul-smelling brown gunk down her robes. Moving over, the girl crouched in front of the girl - a fourth or fifth year maybe - very much aware of the House's eyes on her.

"I think," she began slowly, "that none of you are going to try and tell the tale of how an ickle firstie," she fluttered her eyelashes and gave an innocent smile, putting on a sweet voice for emphasis, "managed to take you all down without using a wand." The responding snarl and raising of a hawthorn wand was abruptly stopped as Juliet swiftly snatched the stick from her grasp. The resounding snap that echoed through the space was practically deafening in the silence as it was broken. The elder girl could only stare in horror as her wand was thrown back at her in two pieces, a few silvery tufts of hair poking out of each piece. "If you still haven't absorbed the lesson, I'm open to tutoring. Nighty night."

With confidence, the ravenette turned to head down the corridor towards the girl's dorms - deliberately showing her back for anyone to try something.

No-one did.

#######################################################################

"I know you were responsible, Potter." Snape's eyes were hard and flinty, not to mention filled with complete and utter loathing. She had noticed his stares originally during the welcoming feast; what exactly did he have against her before even meeting her?

"I don't know what you mean Professor; and my name is Fritton, sir," the angelic smile was matched by eager position No. 4 and a swishing of her legs back and forth on the wooden chair before his desk.

"You assaulted sixteen of my students!"

"Me? I'm just a first year, sir. How on earth would I do that? Besides, what evidence do you have?"

"I have an eyewitness account-."

"And I have numerous eyewitnesses placing me in the girls' dorm at the time, sir," the smile twitched briefly into a triumphant smirk before returning to playful innocence. "Besides, Mr Malfoy… retracted his opinion this morning." She was rather enjoying the shades the man's face was turning; the sheer rage displayed was practically enough to give him an aneurysm.

"You're just like your father, you arrogant little brat; strutting around and thinking you can get away with anything. I will not stand for it! Not in my house!"

"I don't have a father, sir," she replied saccharinely, "just a mother who extensively tutored me from a young age."

"In what?"

"You can remove the girl from St Trinian's, sir," she began as she stood and prepared to leave, "but you can never remove the St Trinian's from the girl."

#######################################################################

"Shh, shh it's okay, luv," the ravenette stated as she rubbed the heaving shoulders of the slightly taller brunette collapsed in the corner shedding tears like there was about to be a drought. "Just try not to look at it." That statement of course made the young Gryffindor's eyes flick upwards to the huge, bloody corpse with a splintered piece of wood up its nose.

"Argh," the girl managed to splutter out as the arm nearby them gave a twitch, making her shuffle backwards in terror.

"There, there; it's just shudders, nervous system hasn't quite gone out yet," Juliet said calmly, moving to hug the traumatised girl, "here, have some of this; medicinal fortifier." From somewhere a metal hip flask was produced and flicked open before being proffered to the near hysterical girl.

"Bloody hell," Hermione managed to splutter hoarsely between coughs and gasps after taking a gulp without paying attention, "is-is that _alcohol_?"

"It's supposed to be gin. Trinian brand to be specific," the other girl replied, taking a much more sedate sip that made even her blink and shake her head back and forth quickly. "It packs a punch guaranteed to wake you up," she continued in a slightly higher voice. Said flask was quickly stowed as the sound of racing footsteps approached. When the teachers did burst in they looked about in open-mouthed shock at the destruction of the bathroom, and the bloodied body of the ex-troll. "It's about bloody time; where the hell have you lot been?"

#######################################################################

"Ah, there you are; I almost thought you weren't going to turn up," Juliet greeted the bushy haired girl as she entered an abandoned classroom on the eighth floor. Said Gryffindor looked cautiously at the other two inhabitants, who regarded her with slightly more well-hidden suspicion.

"What are they doing here?" Hermione queried after a moment, "and why did you want to meet here?"

"I think we'd like to know as well, actually," Tracy stated from her spot on a desk. The other blonde Slytherin present nodded slowly.

"Well," began the final Slytherin – who for some reason was wearing a long black robe, and an odd black hat with a flat top – "since I made a few friends, I thought I'd give them the proper Trinian's treatment; lessons on surviving life, achieving world domination and how we're going to subjugate the school and turn the teachers insane. All the fun stuff, really," Her bright smile was met with dubious looks. "Starting with how we're going to teach someone else a lesson about respect, get Hermione over there some justice-slash-revenge, and remind people what the school motto is. So…" a piece of chalk was grabbed and the words 'Lesson One: Disproportionate Retribution' scrawled on the blackboard. "Who can tell me the school motto and its translation?"

#######################################################################

Ron Weasley was in a foul mood.

This time at school was supposed to be the best part of his life, but everything just seemed rubbish. To start with they expected a ridiculous amount of work from him; not just content to make him turn up to lessons at unreasonable and valuable times he could be using to sleep, but they assigned actual feet's-worth of essays! And he'd thought the chores his mum assigned had been bad. His excitement had been killed on the first day when he got shunned by some brat that had insulted boys, who turned out to be the girl-who-lived of all people, been irritated by a bookish know-it-all that should have had the sense to go to Ravenclaw, and a sissy-boy that should have been a 'Puff for sure. And now he had this bloody thing with said, apparently wimpy, know-it-all who couldn't take criticism. It wasn't his ruddy fault she had run to that bathroom and nearly got killed. He had lost house points and received a stern lecture from professor McGonagall – along with one about turning up to lessons on time the day before – and now the entire house was shunning him just for calling out some stupid, antisocial girl who clearly didn't belong and should have been sorted into Ravenclaw! Even his brothers wouldn't support him, and that was their rudding job!

His mumbles of grumbling decreased as he walked into the Great Hall, regarding the tables heavily laden with breakfast with eager greed. There were some upsides to Hogwarts, he supposed, although the food wasn't quite as good as his mum's, it was in much more plentiful supply – and with no monitoring members of the family to stop him taking his fair share.

He was so eager to enter the hall and stuff his face that he barely noticed as he brushed past a girl, nor the tiny flash that occurred as they briefly touched each other.

Slumping down at the table of red and gold, he noticed a plate already piled high with delicious, greasy food – eggs, bacon, sausage, and other pieces of his favourite foods in plentiful supply. He looked about to see if anybody was nearby, but no-one seemed to pay the plate any notice, in-fact no-one was even sitting closer than two meters to him – a common occurrence since his public shaming. With a shrug, he eagerly dug in. If whoever owned it wanted it, they shouldn't have left it, and there was plenty still on the table if they wanted more.

It was deeply satisfying filling his gob, and the food tasted especially great that day. Ron felt his feelings beginning to brighten as he madly shovelled food into his mouth with disregard for manners or the desire for those close by to be treated to neither flying spittle nor such a nauseous display.

However it just wasn't enough.

With a frown, he desperately began to move quicker; abandoning knife and fork as they didn't function fast enough and using his hands to continually devour, quickly exhausting his plate and having to reach for the near platters.

In his desperation, he failed to notice the slight shift in his skin as its pallor changed, or the way that the plate seemed smaller. No, everything was ignored in favour of eat, consume, feast, devour, inhale, gorge, eat, eat, eat, eat… The shouting and commotion about him also failed to pierce his consciousness even as he grabbed a whole silver platter of bacon rashers and tipped it into his mouth. His world had slimmed to only frenzied consumption.

His eyes and ears, too, did not notice when a red envelope fell from the sky beside him, ripped itself open, and began to speak in a monotone voice:

"Ronald, Ronald, great ugly troll,

Kindness will not cost you your soul.

But friends and companions, you shall not find,

If anger and greed control your mind.

If continue to hate you should know that,

You'll end up alone, ugly and fat.

We just thought, you should be told,

The truth of these virtues you so extol.

And so, we hope that you have learned,

About hurting others without concern.

But we fear to pierce a mind so blotto,

We'll teach you, instead, the Hogwarts school motto.

 _Draco dormiens nunquam tittilandus_."

With the final words, the haze ascended from his gaze and he paused in his devouring of dead animal. With a blink he stared at the floating candle just before his eyes. Weren't they only used several metres above the floor of the Great Hall…

He looked down.

Clustered around his – gigantic, grey – feet were teachers holding wands outstretched as the students pressed themselves to the wall around the room. Every eye in the room was on him – some in fear, some in confusion, and some in amusement. With slow blinking eyes, his hands were brought before his face, still grasping a large dish of cold meats that flopped to the floor as they moved. He was grey skinned. And huge.

"Hurgh?" he enunciated, demonstrating intelligence similar to the beast he now held the appearance of – a mountain troll. "Whu?"

"Mr Weasley, will you please remain calm," came the voice of Albus Dumbledore – slightly at odds with the knobbly wand he upheld pointed directly at Ron.

As the staff slowly directed the newly created troll out of the hall towards the infirmary, none noticed the small, giggling gaggle of four girls in one of the corners. Two of them – one with glasses and the other a brunette, both clad in green and silver – leaned on each other so they didn't fall about laughing. A third – blonde and aristocratic – stood straight with a calm face that only occasionally developed a smirk as her icy demeanour fought not to join the others in hilarity. The fourth – the lone Gryffindor amongst them – kept alternating between guilty looks, contemplation, triumph and giggles like the rest.

Of course, that is, none but a pair that were actively looking for such revelling persons.

#######################################################################

The whispering group of four girls paused in their search for a spare room to discuss events as they encountered a lanky, red-haired boy standing nonchalantly ahead of them in the corridor. A quick turn of the head identified an identical boy walking up behind them.

"Ladies," they both greeted at the same time.

"Fred and George Weasley, I presume," the lead girl said – a ravenette who pushed her glasses back up her nose as she did. "I don't believe we've been introduced."

"I'm George, and that's Fred," the front one said.

"Actually I'm George and he's Fred," the other continued. "But we're both interested in you."

"Oh yes."

"Definitely."

"Quite the prank you pulled."

"On our little eejit of a brother, no less."

"I daresay we have no idea what you're talking about," the girl calmly replied.

"Textbook offended denial, Fred."

"She's a perfect little liar, George."

"However we think-."  
"That you are confusing our interest-."

"For condemnation."

"No, no, we quite enjoyed it."

"Good to see him yanked down a few pegs."

"We were planning something to teach him a lesson ourselves, to be fair."

"It's our duty as his brothers, you see."

"But you beat us to it."

"Magnificently."  
"Tremendously."

"Wonderfully."

"Artistically."

"And we'd like to know how," they completed together, and wasn't Juliet's neck aching from switching her gaze between them.

"Even if we did, which naturally we did not," Daphne spoke up, "why would we tell you?"

"Oh she's a shrewd one."

"Well, she is a snake."

"Yes but with the current ilk of Slytherin, that doesn't mean much."

"It is a bit infested with morons, we'll give you that," Davis spoke up next, her arms crossed, "but not all of us are dullards that breed with our own cousins."

"The question is; what would you offer us in return for our knowledge?" the ravenette added before the twins could reply.

"A good question."

"A fine question."

"We might tell you about the next prank we had planned for Slytherin."

"So you won't be affected by it."

"Not all of us _are_ Slytherins," Granger pointed out.

"And maybe we'll lend a hand in the Lion's den to help she-of-the most-bushy hair not be alienated so much."

"Common courtesy should surely dictate that, as gentlemen," Juliet smirked, "you should do so regardless of incentives, and should have stepped in already."

"You wound us."

"You impugn our honour."

"But alas, you speak the truth."

"We would have."

"But we were just so busy trying to blow up a toilet all term."

"That we didn't notice her plight."

"Until it became public news."

"Our sincere apologies." The pair bowed grandly.

"It still doesn't solve the uneven scales for an agreement to be met," Hermione pointed out.

"We hear you are a bit of a, shall we say.

"Bookworm?"

"And that you may value advanced notes from the year above in the subjects you'll cover this year?"

"And maybe some of our own more…"

"Esoteric research."

Glances were exchanged amongst the girls before they turned to the twins once more.

"We'll want a prankster's oath of amnesty; no tattling to teachers," Juliet stated firmly.

"Of course."

"By our honour as marauders."

"A deal, then?" the ravenette stepped forwards, hand outstretched after spitting in it.

"Deal," echoed the closest twin, who echoed the gesture and shook.

"So…" the girl looked the redhead up and down, trying to decide his name, "Gred," she eventually settled upon, "what would you like to know first?"

"How did you turn him into a troll?" both said at once.

"Polyjuice potion using blood from the troll that got in," the Slytherin replied with a broad smile.

"You managed to brew-."  
"A seventh year potion?"

"You can thank our resident prodigy here for that," Tracy rested her hands on Hermione's shoulders, the latter of whom blushed furiously. "And Snape's supply cupboards."

"It's not _difficult_ if you follow the instructions," the girl protested. "Daphne managed to hide the plate from anyone except him."

"And Tracy hit him with the compulsions when he walked in," the blonde girl added.

"And you?" Gred, or maybe Forge, asked pointedly at the shortest one there.

"Oh, I only wrote the poem. This was a training exercise for this lot – which they passed with flying colours," she answered cheerfully. "No, I haven't even started yet."

The twins took in the fire present in the young witch's emerald eyes, and – as one – grinned like lunatics.

 **A/N: That's as far as I got, and I haven't the time to add anything more. I think it was a pretty good run for an odd thought, personally. Also, yes I know how clichéd it is to go for Daphne and Tracy as the 'Good Slytherins' or 'True Slytherins'. Although they haven't been fleshed out much, they are mainly there as two of the people to be swept along in Juliet's wake, being conveniently placed and essentially blank characters that I can write onto – as much every other fanon author does for the many so-called 'Named OC's' in the Potterverse. And, yes, I know polyjuice takes a month to brew – it just worked too well not to use it, so I'm calling artistic licence. Still, let me know what you think – even if there isn't much to it, I actually quite like this as a set-up.**


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